The Mage
Profanity filled the break room.
The moment he stepped inside, Won-goo realized they were even more of a ragtag mess than he'd assumed. No matter how much you reinforced your abilities with gold coins, survivors who couldn't use them properly died easily.
In that sense, the Youngjae Pharmacy crew came close to being a total shambles. They were failing to respond to the sudden ambush at all.
Experiencing a variety of combat situations mattered, of course, but coordination to match was just as important. The Youngjae Pharmacy crowd may have spent a long time together under the banner of Cheonmok, but they had clearly never fought many real battles.
And with even their leader, Kim Hee-jun, flailing around in a panic, they made perfect prey.
The instant Lee Hyun-sung charged in, he brought the Chinese cleaver down on the back of a man's skull, then finished him with a beheading. An ordinary human would have been done for with that one deep blow to the head.
But these were survivors reinforced with gold coins — not something you could treat like an average person. Confirmation kills were an absolute necessity.
That was exactly why Hyun-sung and Won-goo had so many rehearsed tactics between them. Just now, the moment Hyun-sung downed one man with the cleaver, Won-goo hammered the man's head several more times to finish the job.
Between the rampaging Dullahan and the ambush by Hyun-sung and Won-goo, three of them were combat-incapacitated in the blink of an eye.
"Shit! It's Director Gong!"
Tang!Screech!
A machete aimed at Won-goo's hunched upper body. A warhammer appeared at just the right moment to block it.
"That shit-for-brains voice — that's Hwang Chul, isn't it? Even a scrap of trash like you was with Cheonmok?"
"Forget trash! You chased us all the way here for that goblin, huh? I knew you were a nasty bastard, Director Gong, but I didn't think you'd be this relentless."
"You think it's only about the goblin?"
"......?"
"You killed the Trainer, you worthless pieces of shit!"
"See, this is why talking gets us nowhere. Look at us right now — talking gets us nowhere, and your Director's head goes flying!"
Hwang Chul, locked in a test of strength with their weapons crossed, launched a kick. The foot flying toward Won-goo's head was stopped short by another blade — the small dagger Won-goo had drawn from his ankle.
Thud!
The dagger sank into Hwang Chul's ankle. Even so, Hwang Chul only grimaced slightly and pushed harder, trying to break Won-goo's stance. When many fought few, the battle was as good as won the moment you knocked your opponents flat on their backs — a body sprawled on the floor was that much easier to pin down.
"I went shopping at the mart recently, you know."
"So?"
"That thing's expensive."
As Won-goo spoke, looking at the dagger buried in his leg, Hwang Chul's gaze dropped to his own leg too.
BZZZZT!
The crackle of the stun baton rang out so intensely that the sound carried all around them.
Meanwhile, Hyun-sung had already taken wounds in several places. Even so, his momentum never flagged in the slightest. Wielding Huang Zhiheng's Chinese Cleaver, he showed not a trace of fear — and yet he was no mindless monster, which made him all the harder to deal with.
"Hyun-sung! Duck!"
Hyun-sung reacted instantly to Won-goo's shout, but the spell was faster. A powerful shockwave burst from Kim Hee-jun's hand, and Hyun-sung, caught dead center, was slammed up into the break room ceiling before crashing back down to the floor.
BOOM! Crack!
He fell head-first, and the impact as he landed bent his neck at an unnatural angle. Seeing that, Won-goo didn't hesitate for even a second — he bolted out of the break room.
"You run well. I heard you treasured your people, but your reputation doesn't quite match up, does it?"
Kim Hee-jun spoke up.
"Your profile never said anything about being a mage? So you were hiding that too, on top of everything else."
The two exchanged words across the break room doorway, and all the while Won-goo signaled to Su-won and Jo Mu-sa, who were sprinting toward him. They rushed to his side in a flash, blood-slicked weapons in hand.
"I'd say we've traded enough blows for one day... let's call it here, shall we? One from your side. We're down quite a few more, but I'll let it slide."
"Why the hell would you let it slide? Because we won't."
"Do you really think you can win with those numbers? It looks like you've already lost your biggest asset. That man is Lee Hyun-sung of the 'Last Family' crew, isn't he?"
"Who said we lost him? Isn't that a bit hasty a judgment?"
"Don't try to shake me with cheap tricks. The clock just struck nine — that means it's a last offer. Do we end it here? Or does it go further?"
"Really... you don't trust a word people say. If it's a gamble, at least have the decency to gamble. Hyun-sung! Lee Hyun-sung! Kkakdugi! You gonna get up or what?"
And then something strange happened. A crackling sound issued from Hyun-sung's neck. And then Hyun-sung moved.
"Shit! Why the hell is he moving?!"
The moment the curse slipped out, Won-goo charged back into the break room. The instant he crossed the threshold, Gong Won-goo hurled the warhammer straight to the position he'd memorized. The warhammer flew with a magnificent whoosh toward Kim Hee-jun's face.
CRACK!
The blunt head of the hammer smashed into Kim Hee-jun's eye socket. The spell, of course, was cancelled, and a scream of pure agony rang out.
"AAAAGH! MY EYE!"
Snatching a fallen weapon off the floor, Won-goo surged forward. Hyun-sung, fully recovered now, plunged straight back into the most dangerous point of the fight, with Su-won and Jo Mu-sa covering him flawlessly from behind.
It was Jeon Hye-ji who ultimately closed out the battle.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Hye-ji, having finished her share upstairs, joined the fight at last, and a handful of final shots settled everything for good. At this stage of the game, Won-goo's rifle was an excellent tool for flipping a losing board — survivors still hadn't developed any real resistance to it.
The fight just past could have been wrapped up even more easily if Won-goo, rather than Hye-ji, had charged in with the gun. And yet he had deliberately chosen the current plan, because he believed this method did far more to build his crew's combat experience.
Won-goo was a man who looked at a very distant future — a future far beyond the present. In that future, it wouldn't be him but his crew who had to stand at the front and fight. So giving them even a little more varied experience was critically important.
More than anything, the method he'd used today, brutal as it was, also doubled as preparation for the unexpected.
That something was the Trailer.
The Trailer was everything to Won-goo, and everything to the crew as well. When they went into battle, they always split their forces in part to protect it. The Trailer's baseline defenses meant it wouldn't crack under ordinary attacks, but the one-in-a-million case could never be ignored. Restoring a damaged Trailer required gold coins equal to everything that had gone into it — which was exactly why Won-goo, despite hoarding a fortune in gold coins, refused to squander them.
"Kim Hee-jun, was it? You've got a standing reservation at the ER, you son of a bitch."
CRUNCH!
He drove the warhammer down onto Kim Hee-jun's knee.
"AAAAAAAAGH!"
Kim Hee-jun, who had been clutching his ruined eye, seized his knee and rolled across the floor, shrieking with everything he had.
* * *
The surviving Youngjae Pharmacy members were strung up in a row like Vienna sausages. The rope was a special material that even enhanced-type survivors couldn't easily snap, and it was bound with an unusual knotting technique that left the captive unable to put any real force into struggling.
The remnants of Youngjae Pharmacy, led by Kim Hee-jun, were trussed up one after another.
Having sorted out the situation, Won-goo moved toward the Trailer. There, Hikan and Seok-bong were in the middle of a furious shouting match.
"You seriously think this is the right call? No matter what, you protect what you're supposed to protect."
"A pathfinder takes the job, guides the client, done. Everything else is none of our business. Isn't that why you took the contract too, Hikan — without caring what those bastards were up to?"
"You think we're the same as ordinary diggers? Do you know how many gold coins this job's worth? How are you going to live with yourself after this?"
"You sound awfully confident. Why? Want to settle it face-to-face like last time? Didn't I win that one? Run it again and the result won't change."
"You piece of shit!"
Hikan grabbed Kim Seok-bong by the collar.
"Good shooting. You've got a talent for it."
Won-goo said, looking down at the corpses. Unlike the remnants inside the break room, everyone outside was dead.
He put a cigarette between his lips as he watched Hikan and Kim Seok-bong screaming curses at each other face-to-face, then held a hand out toward Hye-ji with an air of boredom.
"Give it here."
Jeon Hye-ji handed over the rifle. Won-goo took it and pulled the trigger without a moment's hesitation.
At Hikan.
Bang! Bang!
One shot to the side, one to the head. Hikan's body, which had been facing Kim Seok-bong, went flying off into the distance.
"What the — what the hell are you doing!"
Kim Seok-bong roared. But Won-goo was calm. He calmly exhaled a plume of cigarette smoke and handed the rifle back to Hye-ji.
"He was a problem. Consider it solved."
"You said you'd give me time to explain!"
"I gave you plenty."
"You—"
Kim Seok-bong's cheeks trembled. He was that furious, but he couldn't bring himself to lunge at Won-goo. The moment Seok-bong lost control and attacked, he'd be in breach of the contract — and even if he did attack, he had no chance of winning. So Kim Seok-bong was exercising every ounce of patience he possessed.
"Work that brain of yours. Think about how unsettling it is to have that bastard still breathing."
"That's why I said I'd talk him around properly!"
"You got your time, the time ran out, so I dealt with it. You two don't even get along, do you? Close friends, or something like that? Hmm?"
"......"
"Then my apologies. But no contract was ever written, and I've extended you this much courtesy already — that should be the end of it, no? That's how we operate. Anything not in the contract, we never believe. More so than ever lately."
"Having him die here and now is what's unsettling, damn it!"
"Just wrap things up clean and go home. Only Sanghae knows the contract, and Sanghae can't breathe a word of its contents to anyone. Therefore, all you have to do is keep your mouth shut. Right, Seok-bong?"
"With all those eyes watching, you think no one saw me? If Hikan disappears, they'll point at me for sure!"
"Baring your teeth again."
"......?"
"I'm holding a list. What do you suppose that means? It means I know a good deal about the people doing business in the Black Shelters, too."
"What are you talking about?"
"What do you think? Black Shelter intel is rotten to the core, and I'd know."
At that, Kim Seok-bong's face went rigid. Very quickly.
"As far as I know, there aren't many who operate undercover the way you do. Certainly none in Sabbath."
"Who the hell are you?"
"Why ask about my identity? You can deduce this much without any intel at all. If people expelled from a shelter know too much about what happened inside it, isn't that the stranger thing?"
"But—"
"Grind your brain all you want, you won't find an answer. The best way to clean up this situation is to erase every trace of it here."
"Hikan's dead — what's the point of erasing anything?"
"You're not listening. All that means is you don't get to be the one who vanishes. We keep our mouths shut. Every one of us."
"And Hikan, who's evaporated?"
"They'll draw their own conclusions."
"Then you'll—"
"That's our burden to carry. But tell me — were outcasts booted from a shelter really ever that loyal to each other? Simplest story: Hikan got tangled up in the job and died. Or failing that, he took the job and ran. That's how it'll settle, don't you think?"
"Hikan has brothers. They won't let it go."
"Then there'll be a fight."
"No. They'll bide their time and watch for an opening. That's what makes them so irritating."
"Then you'll be the one who tips me off when that smell starts rising."
"......?"
"I'm bending over backward for you right now, Seok-bong. Partly because I took on your urgent little offer — and partly because I'd like us to get along going forward."
"......"
"I can't work with you openly. Trading goods directly is out of the question too. But I can let information trickle your way. And you're always hungry for intel on what's happening inside the shelters, aren't you?"
Kim Seok-bong found it impossible to argue. Won-goo knew far, far too much about the inner workings of the Black Shelters.
As if he were an insider.