The God of Control's One-Coin Clear: Bounty (3)
Thud.
As Taeyang swung his Light Saber, it carved out a gap large enough for a person to slip through.
Ran watched him with an odd look and muttered.
“You talked like you were going to smash the whole place to pieces.”
“You don’t know shit. The best victory is winning without fighting at all. Winning by fighting is barely mid-tier at best.”
Don’t you know The Art of War? Of course you don’t.
At Taeyang’s smug expression, Ran let out an exasperated sigh.
Taeyang threw himself into the hole first.
Ran followed right behind.
“Whoa.”
Amerigo was a city of drug addicts.
The kind of place where addicts lay sprawled across the streets like it was nothing.
Which meant the majority of the city’s cash and wealth was concentrated in the hands of the drug distributors.
“Looks like we hit the right spot.”
“Yeah. Seeing this much stuff, no doubt about it.”
But neither Ran nor Taeyang reacted strongly.
Money or gold.
Assets that worked for ordinary people.
To players, they were meaningless.
The only currency that held value for players was the gold coins dropped as rewards inside the dimensional labyrinth.
Taeyang scanned the area, confirmed it was empty, and muttered.
“Means we need to find the drug packets.”
“It’s way too dark in here.”
“Let’s pull the curtains first.”
It wasn’t a bad plan.
The fact that blackout curtains were drawn like this suggested the room’s owner was highly likely a vampire.
Opening them might make the room stand out from outside, but if the owner returned, the sunlight would give them an edge in combat.
Though it would be noticeable, it was only something you could spot from outside the building anyway.
Suddenly Ran tilted her head.
“Didn’t you say you weren’t planning to fight?”
“When did I say that? I said it’d be best if we could get through without fighting.”
“Unbelievable.”
In Korean, a single syllable can change everything.
The two of them searched quickly.
They had to check the entire floor, so the workload was no joke, but the simple layout made it manageable.
Ran was the first to find something.
“Taeyang.”
“Yeah?”
“Take a look at this.”
What Ran had discovered was a safe.
A solid iron vault hidden behind a wardrobe.
The location, the appearance, the material.
Both of them instinctively knew something important was inside.
Ran stared at the dial lock and muttered.
“How do we open it?”
“How else?”
Shing.
Taeyang drew the Light Saber from his waist once again.
When he first obtained it, he had worried it would be awkward to use in combat because he wasn’t familiar with it, but it turned out to have far more applications than expected.
At that moment Ran raised her hand to stop him.
“Hold on.”
“Why?”
“I have a bad feeling.”
Her sharp eyes glared into empty space.
“If you open it, there’s going to be a huge commotion.”
“Is this your ‘Wind Point’?”
Ran nodded.
Then Hyeonhye carefully cut in.
Still, we can’t just not open it. There’s definitely something inside.
Taeyang thought for a moment.
Hyeonhye was right too.
Besides, they had already spent a lot of time searching the room.
They had checked nearly every place worth looking, and found nothing.
After a brief pause, Taeyang finally raised his blade.
“We have to open it anyway. And we’ve already searched everywhere that mattered.”
Ran, watching, let out a low groan.
“Hmm. True. Better than walking away empty-handed…”
“Plus, a commotion isn’t necessarily a bad thing.”
His original goal was to obtain V-Heroin, but the more fundamental objective was to use the attention drawn by acquiring it to clear the stage.
Assuming the V-Heroin was inside the safe, this might actually work in their favor.
Vrrr.
The Light Saber, having devoured a massive amount of mana, emitted a clear, resonant hum.
Taeyang, who had activated the weapon multiple times in quick succession, frowned.
“It’s definitely putting some strain on me.”
His mana wasn’t running out, but Kimereis’s warning that it would burden his body was proving exactly right.
An uncomfortable pressure weighed on his heart and right arm as they handled the enormous mana flow.
Thud.
The solid steel was sliced clean through, and Taeyang’s face brightened.
“It’s here!”
A transparent packet filled with white powder that carried a reddish tint.
It matched the description of V-HeroinHyeonhye had given him.
At the same time—
WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
“Commotion. Sharp as a knife.”
“Of course. Have you ever seen my point miss?”
Taeyang snatched the packet and immediately sprinted toward the hole they had entered through.
The moment Ran climbed up first, people burst through the door.
“Intruders!”
“Catch them!”
* * *
In the heart of Amerigo.
A pale man sitting like a king in his office suddenly frowned.
“I have a bad feeling.”
At that moment, a subordinate approached.
“Boss, a guest is here to see you.”
“A guest?”
“At this hour?”
The man pulled a pocket watch from his coat.
Three in the afternoon.
He asked again.
“Is it really a ‘guest’?”
Guest.
Slang for someone looking to buy drugs.
“Yes. They said they came looking for the boss.”
“At this hour?”
“Yes. They referred to the boss as ‘Schweitzer Angel.’”
The man—Schweitzer Angel—tilted his head.
Anyone who knew his true name was Schweitzer Angel would also know he was a vampire.
Three in the afternoon. For a vampire, that was no different from three in the morning.
It wasn’t a terrible time for a human to visit, but showing up now to see a vampire was clearly rude.
They know he’s a vampire but don’t know vampire etiquette?
Angel asked.
“Someone you know?”
“Never seen the face before.”
“Money?”
“Chongchong guaranteed them.”
Chongchong the loan shark.
If he had vouched for them, their financial power was reliable.
Angel lifted his wine glass and ordered his subordinate.
“Treat them as a guest.”
“Shall I bring them in?”
“Yes.”
Angel swallowed the liquid in his glass.
The fishy metallic taste sent a thrilling jolt through his brain.
Click.
“This way.”
Following the subordinate’s words, a man appeared.
A scar cutting across his face.
Piercing, intense eyes.
‘Crazy bastard.’
The moment Angel saw him, he made an instinctive judgment.
‘He hasn’t touched drugs yet. An outsider. Doesn’t carry Amerigo’s stench.’
Angel extended his hand.
“Schweitzer Angel.”
“Messiah.”
Angel gave a short laugh.
“Savior, huh?”
“It’s just a name. No deeper meaning.”
After shaking hands, Messiah sat down immediately.
In a completely relaxed posture, as if this were his own office.
And without hesitation, he cut straight to the point.
“V-Heroin. Sell it to me.”
At the words V-Heroin, Angel’s eyebrows shot upward.
V-Heroin.
The greatest weapon of the vampire drug lord Angel, and the most valuable resource every soul in the city desired.
Because of that, Angel had poured extreme care into security whenever he produced it.
Yet the man before him—Messiah—spoke as if it were obvious that Angel possessed V-Heroin.
‘Bluffing?’
Since he knew Angel was a vampire, it was possible he was simply acting bold while knowing nothing.
Angel pretended ignorance and asked back.
“Looks like you heard the rumors wrong. V-Heroin was sold off a long time ago.”
Messiah answered without flinching.
“I already toured the factory on my way here. Do I really need to spell it out?”
“Factory?”
“I came knowing everything. The underground factory, the two batches you ran ‘up there.’ The sorcery was cast about a week ago.”
It was an answer only possible if he knew the production process of V-Heroin.
Even Messiah himself didn’t know why, but the heroin used to make V-Heroin had been deliberately moved to two separate locations during production.
The timing of the sorcery as well.
The V-Heroin production sorcery created a special resonance in the minds of drug addicts. Messiah had already investigated when such events had occurred through careful inquiries.
Angel’s mouth shut tight.
From his perspective—someone who didn’t know about the players’ strategies—Messiah looked like someone who truly knew what he was talking about.
“Do you have the money?”
“Didn’t you hear?”
“I heard Chongchong guaranteed you. But that alone isn’t enough.”
Messiah frowned.
“Hmm. I didn’t prepare any other proof besides Chongchong.”
“None at all?”
“Showing a few bills here won’t count as proof anyway.”
“You know the game well.”
Angel raised his wine glass.
“Seeing how no one recognizes that distinctive face of yours, you must be new in the city. Correct?”
“Correct.”
“I don’t know where you heard about V-Heroin, but no matter what you heard, the reality is beyond imagination. Unless you have serious financial power, you should give up. Even with serious financial power, it’s better to give up.”
Gulp.
Angel drained the liquid in his glass.
“Fine. Instead of proof, I’ll tell you an interesting story.”
“I’m listening.”
“If it’s interesting enough, I might tell you the auction house location, yeah?”
Angel chuckled softly.
“You’ve gathered quite a lot of information.”
“The original V-Heroin production sorcery.”
The moment Messiah spoke, Angel’s expression froze solid.
“Where could it have gone?”
“You…”
Messiah smiled for the first time.
“Location first.”
“…Club Pantheon. The auction is tomorrow night at twelve.”
Messiah leaned back deeply into the large chair.
Auction.
From the beginning, Messiah’s true goal hadn’t been V-Heroin itself but getting inside the auction house.
Schweitzer Angel alone was a 10-million-point heavyweight.
And the V-Heroin auction would gather several—possibly over a dozen—targets of similar caliber.
Messiah planned to raid the auction house together with his fellow players and sweep up a massive amount of points in one go.
“More importantly, I want to hear that story. The original V-Heroin production sorcery. Where did you get—”
Bang!
At that moment a subordinate burst in with an urgent expression.
“Boss!”
“Harari. I’m in the middle of an important conversation, so wait a moment.”
“I-I’ll only give a brief report. It’s extremely important.”
Angel frowned.
But with the subordinate insisting this strongly, he couldn’t exactly ignore it.
Angel rose from his seat.
“Excuse me for a moment.”
“Businessmen are all like that. I get it.”
As Angel left the room, the now-alone Messiah turned on his stream.
The chat window scrolled rapidly.
Messiah’s brows narrowed.
“What? What about Yoon Taeyang?”
Boom.
At that moment Schweitzer Angel violently threw the door open and stormed back in.
His complexion had always been deathly pale, but now it was somehow even whiter.
“Sorry. Urgent business came up. I’ll have to hear the rest of the story another time.”
He didn’t sit across from Messiah. Instead he walked right past him and yanked open a drawer.
“Apologies again. It’s extremely urgent.”
Click.
Angel pulled out a hand cannon the size of a forearm from the drawer.
“Let’s continue this conversation at Club Pantheon. Excuse me.”
Thud.
Flap flap flap.
The door slammed shut, and Angel transformed into a bat and vanished.
Messiah’s face twisted in complete confusion.
“What the hell is this…”