Praise
"I didn't come here for any other reason. I came because I failed to finish the job."
Potion said.
"Justifications are something you can drum up on your own. Either way, it's good you've joined us. The more hands we have, the better."
"You're certain Sde is there, right?"
"There was a tip. But certain? I can't say. That bastard could have moved on by now."
"You're not even going to package it?"
Potion looked her straight in the eye as she spoke.
"I simply don't make promises I'd have to answer for."
At that, Potion's eyebrows twitched for a moment. Her makeup, applied even more lightly than usual, suited her well.
Her outfit was different today, too.
She had thrown on a bulky padded coat that obscured her figure to some degree, yet even that couldn't completely hide her volume.
"Still, if Sde isn't there, I'll arrange additional compensation."
"That's surprising."
"I'd rather not make an enemy of someone I've worked with."
At those words, Potion exchanged a brief whisper with the man seated behind her.
"I think I'm starting to understand why they rank you the best around here. Let's do well together."
"Let's. Though we'll need to be careful."
"Are they that dangerous of a group?"
"Your territory doesn't have a Black Shelter, does it? At the very least, there should be something comparable. That's how it normally works."
"Gangs are a dime a dozen."
"And shelters made by those very gangs, all gathered together. For there to be none..."
"Should there be one?"
"Usually, yes. And that shelter would be vetting who it lets in, too."
"Yes."
"It'd be convenient if the ones who got cast out just died off on their own, but those types tend to have long lifelines, unfortunately."
"It might be because of the Human Cook Gang."
"Is that so?"
"The other gangs can reach some kind of arrangement, to a point. But the Human Cook Gang had none of that. It was eat-or-be-eaten — anyone who wasn't one of them was just meat on the table."
"That's a comparison I can somewhat understand. One loach spoiling the whole pond, so none of them could band together."
"Too strong to be called a mere loach. I still..."
Potion trailed off, looking at Won-goo.
"Why'd you stop mid-sentence? Were you about to say you don't believe I actually beat him?"
"......"
"Everything has its matchups. Those bastards just hadn't run into the wrong one before then."
Potion gave a small nod. Won-goo understood her reaction perfectly.
Quite some time had passed since the apocalypse opened, but this was still only the tutorial stage.
Encounter a survivor like Ralph at this point, and he might well look like an unconquerable monster.
But as the apocalypse progressed further, survivors of Ralph's caliber would become a common sight.
Ralph, at least, was one of the merciful ones — Won-goo knew that better than anyone.
Because he knew that later on, monsters would emerge with the same tenacious vitality as Ralph — and psychic powers on top of it.
"If we're settled, let's head down. Everyone's waiting."
Won-goo rose first.
Sanghae's restaurant.
When they went down with Potion's group, a crowd of fairly well-known heavyweights had already gathered.
He had seen a similar scene not long ago.
The assembly convened to deal with the beastmen in bed with Cheonmok.
This time, though, the turnout was even larger.
And nobody's face was as light as it had been back then. Everyone understood perfectly well that this would be a fight grueling enough to demand their lives.
"Questions come after the briefing."
Standing at the front, Won-goo laid out the situation on the whiteboard he had prepared in advance.
The survivors listened to the briefing calmly.
"So——"
"It all sounds good, and the outline's solid."
A voice cut Won-goo off.
A woman sprawled across two chairs dead center, her legs stretched straight out.
The peculiar thing was that no one sat anywhere near her. As if some protective barrier circled her, everyone kept their distance, sitting far away.
The voice belonged to Ah-bal.
"I thought you said questions come after the briefing?"
"It's all good. Skipping straight to this part — I'm in favor. But there's one thing I need verified."
"......?"
"Is that intel solid? Are those bastards really there? They're the type that move around. If they're not there, I'm folding this whole thing up and walking out."
Ah-bal's words drew nods of agreement all around.
Won-goo, as if he'd been waiting for exactly this, called over the man waiting at the back.
"Introduce yourself. Kim Seok-bong. This bastard's a Pathfinder. Worked Black Shelters, too."
"There were Black Shelter Pathfinders?"
It was an era of severe information imbalance.
Naturally, there were those who didn't even know specialist Black Shelter Pathfinders existed.
"I know what you're all worried about. Working with me means you can never go back to a Black Shelter — so let's just make sure everyone knows it up front. This friend will guide you absolutely properly. What are you doing? Introduce yourself."
"Kim Seok-bong."
Kim Seok-bong bowed his head with a sour expression. But there was nothing he could do.
He knew all too well that he was already firmly caught in Won-goo's jaws, with no way out.
The one hopeful thing was that Won-goo, at least, wasn't a son of a bitch who worked people for free.
It was an era where you had to do whatever it took to survive.
Losing the ability to take Black Shelter jobs would mean less income than before, but he had no choice.
First, he had to stay alive.
"I think the explanations are done. Need more time? Just so you know, the Ganjeolgot Coalition has already started something with a Black Shelter."
"A war?"
Sanghae asked with a startled look.
"Not war-scale yet. But it'll grow. I sprinkled a little medicine, you see. Heh heh."
Won-goo smiled wickedly.
Before departing for the Black Shelter, they did a final check of their armaments and stopped by the Coin Exchange.
Lee Hyun-sung purchased a chain mail. Its form resembled the medieval kind, but the metal forming the chains was a little different.
Ordinary chain mail makes quite a racket with every movement, but this piece — invested with a full 3 gold coins — made no particular noise at all.
On top of that, its chains were finer than standard chain mail.
The drawbacks were the price.
And the fact that it was extraordinarily heavy.
Even Lee Hyun-sung struggled to adapt to the weight. A single piece would have been manageable, but a full-body suit made it that much worse.
So Lee Hyun-sung invested one coin in Strength. Then he spent his remaining coin replacing his helmet.
Since he would be holding the vanguard, shoring up his defense was essential.
Next was Mu Beob-sa.
To prepare for the worst, Mu Beob-sa purchased Magic Parchment.
The parchment carried a murderous price tag, but in an emergency, using whatever you had to survive was what mattered.
A grimoire lets you learn a spell, but parchment could be used by anyone simply by tearing it open.
That said, it was usually a mage or someone with magic-related abilities who did the tearing.
The parchment's output was calibrated to the wielder's mana, after all.
The parchment guaranteed a baseline of power no matter who tore it, but thanks to that murderous price, few actually used it that way.
Next was Jo Mu-sa.
Jo Mu-sa purchased a long five-section baton.
Ordinarily it was a plain rod of about 60 centimeters, but press a button and it extended into a staff nearly 3 meters long.
Durability was average.
Up to that point, nothing particularly important — but the tip was fitted with an electric stun mechanism.
It was a superb piece: anyone without resistance to electricity would drop in a single hit.
"It's really that powerful?"
"It is."
"If it underperforms, do I get a refund?"
"......"
"I asked if you give refunds."
Won-goo said to the crocodile beastman. Its gaping maw never got easier to look at no matter how many times he saw it, but he paid it little mind.
The flaw of the shelter's directly operated shops was that everything was absurdly overpriced.
But they had one advantage: at least the quality of the goods was guaranteed.
So you had to choose carefully. Items that traded for 1 gold coin outside sometimes went for 10 coins in the shelter shops.
Conversely, there were times when things that wouldn't move well on the outside — items that would command an enormous premium — turned up cheap.
The five-section baton Jo Mu-sa was holding was exactly that kind of item.
Anything that discharged electricity carried value in and of itself.
"Let's test it."
"How, sir?"
"Something like this, you test on a person."
At that, the crew started exchanging glances with one another.
"These things you leave to the professionals."
"Professionals?"
Hye-ji asked with a startled expression.
There were professionals for this kind of thing?
"Bring me Il-chul. On my way here I saw him passed out drunk in the plaza."
BZZZZZZZT!
The performance test was conducted on Il-chul's pointed skull.
Trembling all over, Il-chul wet himself and collapsed face-first onto the floor.
"Performance confirmed. If it can drop a tough bastard like him, it works. How many times can this thing be used?"
"Ten. You just used up nine of them."
"You're charging it for me, right?"
"If you pay coins."
Jo Mu-sa had upgraded his equipment with the electric baton.
Suwon now wore shoes that momentarily boosted his movement speed. They paired beautifully with his air blades, fired in three-part bursts.
He could close the distance in an instant and cut his target down before they could react.
Geum Chul-soo acquired a mace and a shield.
Ever since the insect summoner incident, Geum Chul-soo's confidence had swelled considerably, and now he didn't hesitate even to step into the fray himself.
For now, his primary duty was strictly to support the Dullahan and guard Jeon Hye-ji — but his skills would grow quickly.
At the very least, the whole crew believed so.
Throwing himself into mortal danger to save a comrade was, in a way, a latent instinct of his.
And once such an instinct became familiar, it turned into an ability.
Those who possessed that kind of ability tended to adapt to combat remarkably fast.
On top of that, Geum Chul-soo had implanted several commands into the Dullahan, which had now gained intelligence.
Intelligence meant the capacity to learn.
If Geum Chul-soo and the Dullahan fought side by side, they would undoubtedly become a fairly valuable fighting force.
Jeon Hye-ji purchased a powerful harpoon gun and a net that rapidly expanded mid-air when thrown.
With this, Jeon Hye-ji became the crew member with the most weapons, alongside her crossbow and assortment of throwing arms.
"Let's move."
"It's kind of small, isn't it?"
Jeon Hye-ji said. The crew was surveying the Black Shelter's territory below the hill.
For all its infamous reputation, there was nothing particularly special about it.
The only difference from an ordinary survivor camp was that instead of tents, most of the structures were trailers.
Trailers lined up in rows, with a few facilities tucked inside.
Bathrooms and even bathhouses. The bare minimum was all there.
Even those bathrooms and bathhouses were mostly makeshift installations that could be torn down at a moment's notice.
Scale: ten trailers.
How many people lived inside was impossible to tell.
"That's not all of it."
"It isn't?"
"Nope. Areas like that one are scattered at fixed intervals."
"Then..."
"Seems strange, doesn't it? But that's how it works. You've got guys worse than death-row convicts all gathered in one place — you think there'd be no incidents? Control? From the Black Shelter's standpoint, sure, it's possible. But if they clamp down hard, the customers stop coming. Then operating gets difficult. So they built it like this instead."
"So incompatible guests simply never cross paths in the first place."
"Right. And each zone has slightly different facilities. That one's probably the lowest-grade rooms they have."
"Then how many people are here?"
"One guest per trailer. That's the baseline."
"They count trailers as guest rooms? Whoever came up with that idea was sharp."
"Thank you for the compliment."
"......?"
"......?"
"......?"
At that, everyone turned and stared straight at Won-goo.
"What?"
"No, wait... just now..."
"That's right. The one who came up with that idea was me."