War on Crime (4)
Baek Jinwoo had left everything to Hungyo.
Ah, our almighty Hungyo.
It was wonderfully convenient.
He thought this every single time — the man was so competent it made no sense that he'd ever been E-rank.
"Everyone, come out."
Hungyo flung open every cell door in the block.
He normally never spoke in front of humans, but Jinwoo had simply allowed it this once.
From Baek Jinwoo's standpoint, the men inside weren't people at all.
They were unmistakable enemies — the ones who had threatened his family's lives. Targets for elimination.
"Mmph!"
"Mmmmmmmph!"
Among the players screaming through their gags were Oh Jimyeong and Park Hoseop.
Those bastards, seriously...
Baek Jinwoo shook his head. I guess some grudges are simply fated to be.
"Ramba."
"Yep!"
"Take off their blindfolds and gags."
"Ehh?! Why do I have to do it?!"
"...?"
The moment Hungyo narrowed his eyes and stared her down—
"O-okay! Fine, I got it! I'll do it! But you're giving me an hour off training tomorrow, right?!"
Riiiip, riiiip!
Flattened by that charisma, Ramba zipped around the cells tearing off blindfolds.
"Urk!"
"...You sons of bitches. Just kill me instead!"
Some of the freed gangsters cursed and raged.
"P-please, spare me!"
"I'll give you whatever you want!"
Others pressed their foreheads to the floor and begged for their lives.
And then—
"Flame Bird!"
One of them immediately called out his own summon.
It meant absolutely nothing.
Shk!
The B-rank Flame Bird was cleaved in two by Hungyo's sword the instant it materialized.
At the same time—
"I had intended to explain things first, but it seems there's no need. Watch closely. From this moment on, anyone who summons a creature, so much as opens their mouth, or attempts suicide will end up like this."
Thwip!
With a light flick of his fingers, Hungyo struck the man's blood channels.
And then—
"G-GAAAAAAAAGH!"
Hands still bound, the gangster writhed like an earthworm.
The pain was so extreme that his eyes bulged out like a snail's, and water streamed in rivulets from his eyes, nose, and mouth.
He even pissed himself yellow.
"..."
"..."
Every gangster who had been secretly preparing to summon his own creature froze mid-motion.
It didn't merely look painful — the man was twisting as though he were genuinely dying.
"GAAAGH! Gagh! Stop! Please, make it stop!"
"That is the art of Sinew-Splitting Bone Grip. It wrenches muscle and bone out of true — quite painful, as you can see. If you're curious, I recommend trying it once yourself."
Hungyo's voice, by contrast, was perfectly calm.
"Each offense earns exactly one minute of the technique. Be warned: endure more than five, and your mind may simply leave you — or you may spend the rest of your life as a vegetable."
Truly horrifying words.
What kind of pain could do that to a person?
One minute crawled past amid screams that shook the prison walls.
Thwip!
Hungyo released the blood channels.
"Hahh... hagh... huuuh...!"
Cheek pressed to the floor, the player drooled and gulped down air.
As for the gang members — naturally, not a peep out of any of them now.
"Good."
Hungyo nodded, satisfied.
For the players, it was pure hell.
A summon was talking right in front of them, and not one of them could muster a flicker of curiosity about it — that was how terrified they were.
They might die at any moment. Who gave a damn about curiosity?
"Now then — one at a time, you'll each get your chance. The information we need is simple. The whereabouts of Boss Jo Jihak and the gang's executives, and intel on the rank-and-file members. And if you have nothing relevant to offer?"
Thwip!
Hungyo struck the blood channels of two players.
Oh Jimyeong and Park Hoseop.
"G-GAAAAAAAAGH!"
"Fuck! Why ussssAAAAGH!"
The two rankers squirmed like insects thrown onto a fire.
"This is what happens."
There was no particular reason Hungyo was torturing them.
They weren't gang members to begin with, so there was no information to extract in the first place.
It was simple guilt by association.
He simply hadn't cared for the way they'd been looking at his lord lately.
"GAAAAAAAAAAGH!"
Watching the two scream, the gang members' eyes slowly flooded with terror.
It was frightening even to watch — and more frightening still to have lived through.
"Now. You first. Begin."
Hungyo's information harvest had begun.
Hungyo's interrogation methods were superb.
Forget an hour.
In barely thirty minutes, every last one of them had spilled everything and was left panting on the floor.
What loyalty was there to be found among criminals?
One round of Sinew-Splitting Bone Grip, and they were ready to confess everything — right down to Jo Jihak's freakish little fetishes.
If anything, they ransacked their own memories in a desperate hunt for more to give up.
"Disappointing."
Disappointed in their resolve, Hungyo ran the full sequence of the technique on all of them one more time.
Two minutes apiece.
In an instant, the room filled with screams.
"My Lord."
"Mm."
Baek Jinwoo didn't look away.
He took in every moment of their suffering with his own eyes.
It was a process of adaptation.
The world had changed, and this was the kind of thing that would keep happening.
I have to face reality.
And if he flinched away out of fear?
In this world, you were simply the one who got crushed.
"We can proceed on the basis of this information."
Pokryongi diligently took notes beside him, recording everything Hungyo had extracted.
"Okay."
Baek Jinwoo nodded.
His promise to Park Chang-seok had been one hour.
It was time to return everyone to their cells and get out.
"Ramba."
"What now?!"
"What do you think? We have to tie them back up."
"Hnnngg...!"
Ramba grumbled and whined, but what could she do?
Every other summon had its own role to play.
Someone had to handle the grunt work.
Park Duppal was a gang member.
Not an executive — an ordinary foot soldier, and the lowest of the low at that.
The gang was run on a strict cell system, so the information he knew was extremely limited.
Fuck.
Right now he was gnawing at his thumbnail, trembling with anxiety.
All because Baek Jinwoo had declared war on crime and given them a single day to turn themselves in.
Honestly, a nobody like me couldn't even call himself a real gangster.
What had he actually done?
Intimidated a couple of ordinary players out of their money. That was the extent of it.
He'd never killed anyone, and he didn't have the temperament for it, either.
Ugh, whatever.
And so he made his decision.
He wasn't turning himself in.
Would they really bother hunting down bottom-rung grunts? They'd grab Jo Jihak, wrap it up, and let the little fish slip through the cracks.
The next day, Park Duppal would come to bitterly regret that decision.
He opened his front door and stepped outside, and—
"Park Duppal?"
Someone dropped out of the sky — thump! — and spoke.
"You didn't turn yourself in, did you?"
"Wh-what the—?!"
A flustered Park Duppal looked up at the someone — and grew even more astonished.
B-Baek Jinwoo?
How did Baek Jinwoo even know who he was — let alone fly all the way here to find him?!
Mouth hanging open, Park Duppal froze solid on the spot.
"I don't have time, so I'll make this quick. Turn yourself in by tomorrow. Tomorrow is two minutes. And just so you know, it goes up by one minute every day."
"...What?"
What was that supposed to mean?
Tomorrow was two minutes?
Then what was today?
He stood there utterly bewildered, but Baek Jinwoo was already airborne on his wyvern, winging toward the next address.
But hey.
It was fine.
He'd understand soon enough.
Hungyo's finger sword, streaking down from that same sky, went thwip! — and struck Park Duppal's blood channels.
Having already employed Sinew-Splitting Bone Grip hundreds of times by now, Hungyo's proficiency had grown by leaps.
He could now fine-tune the technique so that the blood channels released naturally after exactly one minute.
"Wh-what are you do— GAAAAAAAAGH!"
Park Duppal's body jackknifed under pain unlike anything he had ever known in his life.
Never mind agony down to the marrow.
He rolled across the ground, screaming.
A simple fracture was enough to bring a grown man to tears — so how much worse when his bones twisted every which way and his muscles moved of their own accord?
The pain lasted exactly one minute.
Only then did Park Duppal grasp the true meaning of Baek Jinwoo's words.
He was telling me to turn myself in on my own.
If he didn't do it today?
Tomorrow would be two minutes. The day after that, three.
Insane.
Park Duppal shook his head.
No. This was not the way.
One minute alone had made him want to die — and he was supposed to endure two?
I'll turn myself in.
On what charges?
All of them. I'll confess everything!
This was a man who even knew his standing as the gang's lowest grunt.
Up against intelligence like that, he couldn't begin to imagine what would happen if he tried some careless lie.
Rushing home to wash up, Park Duppal headed straight for the police station.
In a remarkably short span of time, South Korea was tasting enormous change.
A furious Baek Jinwoo had thrown out his entire schedule.
He was so pissed off he didn't even bother with his weekday dungeon circuit.
He wrung information out of criminals under interrogation, and with the Player HQ's cooperation he tracked down their home addresses.
And then?
He went there in person and beat the living daylights out of them.
Anyone with even the faintest history of gang membership was hunted down and dealt with.
The executives?
He dug up fresh name lists and updated his intelligence.
The rumors spread like wildfire across the community boards.
Some gang members had already been caught; the ones who hadn't began sweating bullets, one after another.
And so, one by one...
the roots of crime were being ripped out of the ground.
And at that very moment.
"...What do we do?"
The promised abandoned building.
A lone figure spoke in a troubled voice.
"The gang we spent years building is collapsing in a single instant."
"...I know."
Jo Jihak scowled.
He'd considered calling in his executives, but the majority of them had already turned themselves in.
What the hell is he doing?
How was he gathering information and making arrests this fast?
Jo Jihak simply could not understand it.
He had never felt this kind of helplessness — not against the state, not against headquarters, not against the great guilds. What in the world was Baek Jinwoo?!
"The executives?"
"Everyone who can gather is gathered and waiting. We have to make our choice now."
"I suppose we must."
Fight, or run.
Jo Jihak was no fool.
He knew better than anyone that his current forces were no match for Baek Jinwoo.
...Did I move too rashly?
No.
The outcome would have been the same either way.
The more firmly Baek Jinwoo's position solidified, the bolder headquarters would have grown.
If he had one regret, it was this—
Not going myself.
He should have gone in person and abducted one of Baek Jinwoo's inner circle.
When things fell apart like this, he could at least have bought time through blackmail...
"Jihak, sir!"
Just then—
A commotion erupted from below the abandoned building.
"B-Big trouble! Come down and see!"
What now?
Jo Jihak hurriedly stuck his head out — and froze in shock.
Because down below, he could see Baek Jinwoo dismounting from his wyvern.
Thud!
Baek Jinwoo touched down and glanced around.
"So everyone was gathered here?"
Then he flashed a grin.
"You have ten seconds. Assemble in front of me. Anyone who doesn't gets a five-minute sentence."
At the same moment—
Fwoooosh!
The abandoned building was ringed by a wall of blood-red flame.
The flames of that famous Fire Dragon Mage.
Watching them, Jo Jihak thought to himself—
Fuck. Am I screwed?