Return
It was two hours later that Il-chul came back — and he came back with a fistful of coins, enough to pay off the principal plus interest with plenty to spare.
"You little punk. You had money this whole time? You lied to me?"
"No, sir! This is borrowed!"
"You're running a rotating debt scheme?"
"……"
"Well, at least you've got talent. Where'd you even borrow this much? No lender in their right mind would give you a coin."
"I borrowed it from a friend."
And as he said it, Il-chul's face crumpled like he was about to cry.
"Why are you crying?"
"The, the condition for borrowing from him was that I'd, I'd serve him as my hyung for the rest of my life…"
"And that pisses you off?"
"No, sir!"
"But your friends are all the same breed anyway. Where the hell did that one get money?"
"He, he got paid. He went out with the Fishers to pick up salvage."
"He sold the loot and paid off a loan shark? Il-chul, you lucky bastard."
"Heh heh. My reputation isn't the worst, you know."
Even as he bantered, Won-goo fully intended to verify whether any of this was true.
"If you're done with the accounting, get lost."
"But, Director-nim."
"What?"
"My friend told me something strange."
"What?"
"There was a fight among the Fishers this time around."
"Go on."
"He says some of the Fishers on the other side were speaking Chinese."
"Chinese?"
"Yes. He swears he heard it clearly. And he said there was actually a mood where both sides could've fought a bit and pulled out, but the Chinese guys seemed to be egging things on. That was the feeling, anyway."
"Ethnic Koreans from China? Or actual Chinese nationals?"
"Well, that's…"
Il-chul scratched his head.
"Probably Joseonjok, then. Fine, got it. Beat it."
"Yep!"
Won-goo sent him off with a face that couldn't have cared less.
But his next move came swift as a blade.
"Everyone, gather up."
A summons in a dead-serious voice. The crew dropped whatever they were doing and assembled.
"Remember what I told you before? Things are going to start mixing together. Feels like it's finally starting. Word is some Chinese-speaking bastards were in the middle of this Fisher brawl."
"That part isn't new, though."
"I know. The Joseonjok were here in Korea when the world flipped, after all. But have any of you ever seen them speak Chinese in front of us? There was a time when even a difference in accent was enough to get a knife drawn in your face. You think they'd do it now?"
"They are desperate to hide it these days," Jo Mu-sa offered.
"Exactly. That's the point. But this time, Chinese speakers were mixed into a Fisher fight that blew up completely. We'd have to confirm the facts, but… it feels like the mixing has begun."
"Wh, when things mi, mix, what ex, exactly ch, changes?"
It had been a while since Suwon opened his mouth.
"Everything changes. We'll be competing with people from other countries too. First the neighbors, then it spreads until the whole world's tangled up together. When that happens, practice is over. The true start of the apocalypse."
"Then what do you make of the claim that the Chinese were egging it on?"
"The Fishers are lunatics, but they're not idiots. They're unlikely to fall for something like that."
"Then…"
"People are like this, you see. When things go wrong, they don't look for the cause. They find someone to witch-hunt and call the problem solved. Hye-ji."
"Yes, Director-nim."
"Guard the office with Rafael. Jo Mu-sa."
"Yes, sir."
"You move with Chul-su and Suwon. Everyone circle around outside and find out as much as you can about why the incident exploded."
"Total annihilation is an exaggeration. Most of them were wounded rather than killed, and a fair number of those were serious injuries. Hence the withdrawal."
Outside Neoguri's shop, Won-goo watched the rain fall. Beside him, Neoguri crouched, smoking.
"So it's true those Solo guys sold off the goods?"
"Yep. Nothing wrong with that either. You know the Field's unwritten rule. If you die, whatever's yours belongs to whoever picks it up."
"Says who? The real rule is the dead man's crew gets first claim on his stuff."
"That's what the crew folks claim. It's never actually been that way."
Long story short, this was the truth of it: the Fishers had clashed, that much was certain. But it hadn't been the mutual slaughter Il-chul had made it out to be. There had been an engagement, and the dead and the wounded had come out of it.
"So the Fishers are heading back to the Shelter?"
"Probably? With their numbers the way they are, it'll take a while though. They've got the wounded to carry. But… adding it all up, they didn't lose that many men, so why call a withdrawal? Did someone important die?"
"Could be."
"Or maybe they settled the score? With the other Fishers, I mean. Think about it — it wasn't a fight, it was a fight to reach a conclusion. Doesn't that make more sense?"
"If they were capable of that kind of rational judgment, they'd have just settled it in a clean, head-on match, wouldn't they? Anyone can see this whole thing was irrational, all raw emotion. You think it ended on a sober calculation?"
"Then why'd they pull out? The Fishers' whole signature is going bug-eyed at prey and never turning back."
"That's when they're in good shape."
"Hm?"
"When the Fishers showed up this time, I told you their numbers looked thin, didn't I? Right? Well, turns out they'd already split into factions."
"Ah… so with fewer men, even a few losses left them unable to take down a Large Species."
"Grade 7, that is. Grade 7. Doesn't matter that the Salamander Frog's treated like a snack among Large Species — one wrong step and every last one of them dies. Would you seriously attempt that? What did I tell you? The Fishers aren't stupid."
"Right. Not stupid."
"So — did you blow a bundle on all that new stock?"
"Ah, spending's been heavy. Like buying a whole new car."
Tsss.
As he talked, Neoguri ground his cigarette out against his own forearm.
"You lunatic, why do you keep stubbing cigarettes on yourself?"
"Sensation's been different since the surgery, I'm telling you. Different."
"There isn't a single sane bastard around here. I'm heading out."
"Don't go. Wait a sec. You're close with Baek Seol, right?"
"You know Baek Seol yourself, hyung. Why?"
"I'm in an awkward spot. Just hear me out."
What Neoguri brought out from inside the shop was a heavy sports bag. Inside, cigarettes were packed to the brim.
One look at their color told Won-goo these were a stronger breed than ordinary smokes.
Red-glowing cigarettes. They radiated an intense crimson, as if coated in phosphorescent paint.
"These are the slow-burn kind?"
"No. These are the very slow-burn kind."
"So this is where those Solo bastards' cash was coming from? The weapons were just side income. This was the real product?"
"Exactly. Word is the Fishers take one long drag of these right before a fight and walk in on it."
"They're that potent?"
"No other effects mixed in. It's specialized for killing fear, apparently."
"So it's a newbie product, then."
Survivors who lived by hunting monsters didn't sink their coin upgrades purely into physical stats. They always invested in the mental side too — that was how they avoided freezing up in a panic and botching the job.
Even with heavy investment in mental fortitude, there were still plenty of cases where a deeply buried trauma won out and sent someone spiraling into panic.
But that was a story only for survivors worth investing in.
No one was fool enough to spend coins on the flyweight lives of Fishing Ground newbies.
So the workaround that had been devised was stacking multiple kinds of boosters instead.
What Neoguri had just shown him was a cigarette specialized for mental reinforcement.
"You take these, hyung. You're Neoguri, after all. You could smoke a fair amount of this stuff."
"What would I even do with a mental boost? And it's not my taste anyway."
"So you've already tried them."
"Tried them, sure. But no. All strength, no flavor. Nothing there."
"And that's why you want me to pass these to Baek Seol?"
"She'd take them off your hands on decent terms, wouldn't she?"
"Honestly… do you not know how this business works? Every extra pair of hands the price climbs."
"You can keep the leftovers."
"Ehh? And how much do you think I'm planning to skim off the middle?"
"Skim whatever you can get away with."
"Hey, hyung. Question."
"What?"
"These didn't get dropped somewhere, did they? You didn't exactly come by them honestly?"
"Oh, come off it! What do you take me for? Look, I don't go off half-cocked like that even when I'm minding the shop alone. You think I'd take hot goods while flying a legit Shelter sign out front?"
"You deal in stolen goods anyway."
"Sure, but even then, I only take stuff that's passed through plenty of hands first. You think I got shot in the head? I'd take loot knowing full well the Fishers just walked past that spot?"
"So it was legitimately salvaged. Got it."
"Right. That's what I've been telling you."
"Hm… Okay. I'll pass them to Baek Seol. In return, the payment comes back through Baek Seol too. Deal?"
"Works for me. Might as well have her pay me in cigarettes while she's at it."
"What kind?"
"I've got plenty of dailies. Swap me for slow-burns and I'm happy."
"Then that's settled. But let's agree on one thing. If this ever blows up in our faces, I'm walking away scot-free. Understood? I'm not on my own anymore — I've got a crew depending on me."
"No."
Neoguri shook his head, flat and final.
"Excuse me?"
"If there's a problem with the goods, you're the one who steps up. Fuck's sake, I'd take a huge loss too. In that case I'll place a formal order through Sanghae."
"Then do it that way, sure."
Won-goo picked the bag up off the floor as he spoke.
"But it won't come to that. The guy who sold me these is a fixture at this Shelter. Not the kind of bastard who pulls dirty tricks."
"You two close?"
"We've crossed paths now and then. Over games."
"You met over gambling… Don't tell me it's Il-chul? You wouldn't know him? The bastard whose head sticks up like a mountain."
"Il-chul I know. The guy who trails around after you getting into trouble. He's famous."
"Leave me out of it. We just exchange a few words, that's all."
"Come to think of it, the guy I dealt with would be a friend of Il-chul's."
At that, Won-goo nodded. At the very least, this was the moment Il-chul's story turned out not to be a lie.
"Right, I'm off."
The deal with Baek Seol went clean and quick. She didn't pester him with tedious little questions about where the goods had come from — not the way Neoguri had.
And she had good reason not to.
Officially, Baek Seol was nothing more than the owner of a small bar in Sabbath.
But she was also a member of an organization operating in far deeper shadows.
Even goods with questions attached were more than within her capacity to absorb.
Won-goo, who knew all this, had made a point of telling her plainly: the goods came through Neoguri, and defects were a possibility.
"Exactly the goods you requested. And here's the coin. You certainly timed the arrival of your coins to the day, didn't you?"
The bag he'd carried the cigarettes in was refilled, this time with new merchandise.
By shuttling once between Neoguri and Baek Seol, Won-goo had cleared ten gold coins.
More than enough to patch the ledger that Rafael had blown apart — and he'd had the loan-shark work on top of that.
He was hauling the heavy bag back toward Neoguri's shop when figures stepped into his path.
The silhouettes weren't familiar — but they weren't entirely alien either.
Beastmen.
And on top of that, Administrators.
Telling a Beastman tourist apart from an Administrator was simple: anyone carrying weapons inside the Shelter was an Administrator; anyone who wasn't was a Beastman who'd come in as a tourist.
And the Sabbath Administrators wore matching uniforms on top of that, which made them even easier to spot.
"Ahem… My schedule doesn't include meeting with Administrators, gentlemen."
"You have an audience with the Shelter Director. Move!"
A pigeon Beastman made a grab for Won-goo's arm.
Instantly, the Beastman beside him threw a punch without the slightest hesitation.
Wham!
A blow powerful enough to drop the pigeon Beastman straight to the ground.
"Did they not tell you to escort him politely? You stupid bastard."
The one who'd thrown the punch was a dog Beastman. He had the face of a pit bull, but his manners were impeccable.
At least, toward Won-goo.
"The new recruit needs more training. My apologies, Director Gong."
"Skip the small stuff. The Shelter Director is calling for me?"
"He is. Will you come with us?"
"Well… I suppose I'll go take a look."