The Red-Eyed Mad Dog
The broadcast switched on. On the screen, Yu Jin-ri sat alone on a dirty mattress.
“How old are you?”
“I’m… twenty.”
“Twenty? Are you in college?”
“No… I graduated high school early at fifteen and went straight to university. I’ve already finished that, too.”
“Oh? You must be incredibly smart. Carpe Diem would have snapped up a talent like you. Why didn’t you get a proper job?”
“I’m very interested in magi research, but Carpe Diem has zero interest in that field. So I wanted to study it on my own.”
“Aha~ So that’s why you borrowed money? How much?”
“I didn’t plan to borrow that much at first… but it somehow snowballed to five hundred million, and with interest it’s now one point two billion I have to repay.”
“You needed that much cash?”
“Yes… The War God destroyed every last piece of data on magi, so I had to start from zero.”
“Wow, one point two billion. You’re really going to have to work hard, huh?”
“Y-yes… yes…”
“Then, Miss Yu Jin-ri, no matter what happens from now on, you have no complaints, correct? Everything we do is by mutual consent. You’re agreeing to this, right?”
“That’s correct…”
It was, of course, illegal sexual exploitation. This recording was simply insurance. If any controversy ever arose, the Bananaman gang could claim everything had been consensual. They had never actually needed to use it, but it was a customary procedure they kept around just in case.
“Shall we get started, then?”
The moment the half-naked men reached for Yu Jin-ri, a thunderous BANG! echoed through the basement. The iron door had been violently kicked open.
All eyes snapped from Yu Jin-ri to the doorway. There stood a powerfully built man. His eyes burned a deep crimson, and the murderous aura rolling off him made it clear he had not come as a friendly visitor.
“Who the hell are you?” one of the men demanded.
Instead of answering, the intruder hurled something into the room. It was another man—stiff, eyes wide with shock, completely motionless.
“That’s… Mitsu?”
The thrown man was Mitsu, the guard stationed at the basement entrance. As the protector of their most important area, he was supposedly the strongest fighter in the entire Bananaman gang.
“H-he’s dead…”
One of the men checked for a pulse, then recoiled in horror.
“Mitsu’s dead!”
The room erupted into panicked murmurs. It made sense. Mitsu had been the strongest among them. More importantly, he had carried a radio. If an intruder had attacked him, he should have called for help immediately. Even before that, the men upstairs should have sent a warning.
But nothing had come.
Mitsu’s frozen expression showed pure shock, as if he had never realized he was about to die.
The man who had thrown the corpse spoke in a low voice.
“Weak.”
The gang members were thrown into confusion by the casual dismissal of their strongest fighter. Of course, if he had faced one of the Three Major Syndicates, they couldn’t argue that they were weak. But this man wore no snake badge of Carpe Diem, no S-shaped earring of the Esper Hunters, and no martial robes of the Murim Alliance.
“W-who the fuck are you?! What did you do to the guys upstairs?!”
The president of Phone Cash screamed, completely rattled by how wrong things had gone.
The intruder pointed a finger at the ceiling.
“Oh, the ones upstairs? I killed them all. They were weak too.”
“What…?”
“I’ve fought the bottom-feeders of the Murim Alliance and gone toe-to-toe with Carpe Diem. Compared to them, you people are pathetic. Truly pitiful.”
“Who the hell do you think you are, saying shit like that?!”
In response, the man reached into his inner pocket and pulled out a promissory note.
“Who am I? I’m the guy who came to collect the money I lent you.”
The word Fantasia was clearly written on the note. And pinned to the man’s chest was a badge shaped like the letter F.
One of the quicker-witted thugs finally realized what he was looking at and shouted.
“F-Fantasia?! What the fuck is that ruined piece-of-shit organization doing here?!”
Pure chaos.
Fantasia was supposed to be a dead organization with no combat personnel. That was why Phone Cash had been able to brazenly refuse repayment when they first borrowed the money. But the man standing before them was clearly dangerous. The fact that he had killed Mitsu proved it.
If Fantasia had possessed someone this dangerous, they never would have borrowed money in the first place. Their pushover boss would have paid it back the moment someone came to collect.
This man had never existed in Fantasia before. That was why they were so confused.
Amid the panic, a woman’s voice rang out, trying to calm the thugs.
“Everyone, stay calm. Our opponent is just Fantasia. Don’t fall for his bluff.”
“A bluff, boss?”
“Exactly. How could one man slaughter that many of our people when he doesn’t belong to the Murim Alliance, Carpe Diem, or the Esper Hunters? It’s all bluster. Empty bravado.”
Porina, boss of the Bananaman gang, narrowed her golden eyes and let out a short laugh.
“Those three syndicates never share their power with outsiders. They hoard it. Without that kind of power, everyone else is just a normal human. No matter how good he is at fighting, it’s impossible for one man to wipe out our entire crew.”
“B-but Mitsu is dead!”
“Look at his face. It’s obvious he died without even realizing it was coming. He must have used some sneak attack. The reason we didn’t get a radio warning is because he slipped in so quietly that no one noticed.”
Porina shrugged casually and addressed the intruder.
“Am I wrong?”
The man tucked the promissory note back into his pocket and sneered.
“It’s almost funny how confidently you spout nonsense.”
“Hah! Still keeping up the act? You think I haven’t seen punks like you before?”
Porina smirked as well and reached into her own inner pocket.
“Every single one of them folded the moment they saw this. They cried and begged for their lives.”
What she pulled out was a handgun.
Until now, Porina had never tangled with any of the Three Major Syndicates. But she had clashed plenty of times with smaller organizations. Most of those punks would strut around with kitchen knives because they couldn’t afford guns. Then, the moment they saw a real firearm, all their big talk about fists and honor vanished and they’d start trembling.
This man would be no different. The second he saw the gun, he would drop to his knees and beg for mercy. Just imagining that scene made Porina smile. There was nothing more enjoyable than crushing an arrogant opponent.
But the instant she drew the gun and aimed, the man was gone.
As if he had predicted she would pull a weapon, he was already charging straight at the half-naked men.
‘F-fast!’
She tried to aim, but he was simply too quick. Still, Porina wasn’t worried. Why? Because rushing straight into a crowd of men was pure stupidity. It was impossible for one person to handle that many opponents. Someone would definitely grab him, and in that opening, she could fire and win. It was simple.
That was what she had thought.
THUD!
The man threw a single punch. The thug who took it collapsed like a broken doll. His body went rigid, as if his brain had been destroyed. He never moved again. He was dead.
“U-UWAAAAAAGH!”
Overwhelming terror.
The gang members watched their comrade die from a single punch and completely lost their minds. They finally realized the intruder was no ordinary human.
But by the time they realized it, it was already too late.
It took less than five seconds for every last one of those men to end up sprawled across the floor.
“I told you. You’re all weak.”
“Y-you… you fucking bastard!”
These were subordinates she had spent pleasurable times with. Seeing them slaughtered in an instant, Porina lost all reason and pulled the trigger repeatedly.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
But the man had already predicted that too. He lifted one of the corpses and used it as a shield. Porina’s frenzied bullets only buried themselves uselessly into dead flesh.
Click. Click…
The pistol let out a pathetic empty sound. The magazine was dry.
Porina trembled violently as she tried to slam in a fresh one, but—
“Too slow.”
The speed of an untrained person reloading was far slower than the man’s charge.
CRUNCH!
“KYAAAAAAAAAAH!”
The hand holding the gun was seized and crushed. A sound that should never come from a human hand rang out as both the gun and the fingers were pulverized together. To have enough grip strength to crush a pistol along with the hand—
Only then did Porina realize how badly she had miscalculated. Tears poured down her face.
“W-why are you doing this to us…? If you had just come to collect the debt, we would have paid it back…”
“The bitch who pulled a gun sure has a smooth tongue. So if our boss had come without me, you would have paid it back just the same?”
“O-of course! It was just bad luck that we never had the money whenever Fantasia came to collect. I swear it’s true! If you had come peacefully today, we really would have paid! The gun was just for self-defense!”
“Hmm…”
The man seemed to be thinking it over.
If I play this right, I might survive.
As long as she and the president survived, they could rebuild the organization. They could always hire new thugs with money. It looked like her story was working. If she could just keep sweet-talking him—
“Eight.”
“Huh?”
“That’s the number of female corpses you were about to dispose of. All women.”
The conversation was taking a strange turn.
“I don’t know exactly when they died, but the decay isn’t that bad. They must have been killed fairly recently. How much did you earn from broadcasting each one for a hundred thousand won apiece?”
“H-how did you—?!”
“And since you made money every time you went live, it wasn’t a one-time thing. You must have wrung them dry until their bodies gave out and they died.”
Was that all?
“You’d sell the recorded videos to people who missed the live stream or wanted to keep them, right? Something this sick and illegal doesn’t get established overnight, does it?”
The man asked with a dry smile.
“Are you still going to lie and say you didn’t have the money?”
“Ah… ah…”
There was nowhere left to retreat.
What should she do? What the hell should she do?
Porina began babbling desperately.
“B-but if you kill me, you won’t get your money back! You’ll never see those fifty million won!”
“Why? The president of Phone Cash is right over there, isn’t he?”
“Y-you think that bastard will pay?! He absolutely won’t!”
“Then I’ll just kill him too.”
“If you kill the president too, how are you going to get the money?! Are you seriously insane?!”
The man turned his gaze away from the screaming, pathetic Porina and looked at Yu Jin-ri.
“A genius scholar who graduated high school at fifteen and showed enough passion to go into debt just to research magi. If I can bring someone like her into the current Fantasia, that’s worth far more than fifty million won.”
—So it doesn’t really matter if I don’t get the fifty million.
“Ah, th-that… Fantasia… that legendary organization that should have disappeared into the trash bin of history.”
She was trying to survive again.
CRACK!
That was Porina’s final thought.