Episode 37: You have to settle the score with me separately
Episode 37: You have to settle the score with me separately
It was an abandoned factory that looked like something I'd seen in movies a dozen times.
It was a classic cliché location favored by gangsters.
"Choosing a place like this... I guess it suits you."
The factory, which must have once passionately produced goods, seemed to have stopped operating long ago due to the Gate Incident.
As I opened the iron door, the first thing I saw was a man who looked like a total sleazebag.
The man in the suit, with his hair slicked back neatly with pomade, greeted me while smoothing down his greasy hair.
He was dressed more neatly than I expected.
However, his eyes, slanted like a wildcat's, made it clear he wasn't someone running a legitimate business.
But aside from the guy who looked like the boss, the rest looked like typical thugs.
Fierce-looking, tattooed, muscular men.
'E-rank hunters, huh.'
Sub-par Awakened who couldn't even enter dungeons.
But those with strength greater than the average person often ended up becoming back-alley thugs.
'Guys like that often gather and become Villains.'
Eight E-rank hunters and one D-rank hunter.
For Yoo Ara, who was only a first-year cadet, they must have been terrifying opponents.
Because Yoo Ara still lacked real-world combat experience.
However, they weren't difficult opponents for me.
The problem was that I had a hostage.
I looked at Yoo Ara, who was tied to a chair.
"Mmph! Mmph!!"
As soon as Yoo Ara saw me, she struggled and screamed.
Ignoring her desperate plea to be saved, I approached the loan shark.
"What's your name?"
"It's Gu Jeong-mu. I run a sound financial business in the Pyeongtaek area."
Gu Jeong-mu pulled a business card from his pocket and handed it to me.
-Myeongil Finance.
-Gu Jeong-mu.
As expected, it was a loan shark company.
"How's business?"
"Well, let's just say I earn enough to keep my employees from going hungry."
Gu Jeong-mu, looking at me with a sly grin, asked.
"But are you really serious?"
"About what?"
"This girl. About selling her off to another guild."
"Are you trying to test me again? You even called the Sword Saint yourself to verify, and you still don't believe me? I don't think I need to waste my breath saying it again."
"Ahem, my apologies. It's just a process to ensure mutual certainty. Let's get to the point. About the business talk. What's the plan exactly?"
The wildcat eyes looking at me gleamed.
"It's simple. I train kids who have trouble operating officially, sell them off to famous guilds, and take a commission. The higher their grades, the more money I can get."
"Hmm, sounds like a solo operation, so why tell me?"
"Obviously, because you bastards took my merchandise. I have a personality that hates seeing scratches on my goods."
"Marketability is important."
"You didn't do anything unnecessary, did you?"
I said, looking at Yoo Ara.
Tears were welling up in her eyes.
Betrayal, anger, despair, desolation.
Countless emotions were contained in her bright, clear eyes.
"Mmmphhh!!!!"
Gu Jeong-mu's face brightened when he saw Yoo Ara glaring at me as if she hated me.
It was because it was pure anger that didn't look like acting.
"Of course. We're people who know the rules, too. I have no intention of harming valuable merchandise. We have something to collect, too."
"Is that so."
"Yeah."
"Can I check her first?"
"Sure. Go ahead."
Gu Jeong-mu, seemingly having his suspicions cleared by Yoo Ara's reaction, obediently stepped aside.
"By the way, you're quite the sadist. To get a reaction like that, she must have trusted you quite a bit."
I let his words go in one ear and out the other.
I started kneading Yoo Ara's body.
"Hng-mmph!!!"
Yoo Ara recoiled in disgust.
A reaction different from before.
It was the voice of a woman filled with betrayal.
[Yoo Ara]
[Status Effect: Anger]
There was no mention of any special magic or poison.
However, perhaps from being beaten while being dragged here, there were blue bruises all over her body.
'Bastards.'
Yoo Ara was a student I had raised with great care.
There's no way a teacher would like seeing their student get beaten.
Maintaining as much calm as possible, I checked to see if she had been cursed.
'Thank goodness.'
Unlike what I had worried about, Yoo Ara's body was clean.
"It's certainly clean."
"Of course. The most important thing in the financial business is credit. I would never do something as foolish as messing with the merchandise."
"Thanks."
"Haha, no need for thanks. Let's grab a drink later... Wait, what are you doing?"
Having confirmed Yoo Ara's safety, I took down the two hulking guys standing next to Gu Jeong-mu.
There were 9 opponents.
The hostage's safety was confirmed, so now all that was left was to beat the crap out of them.
"Gah-urk!"
"Ugh!"
One attack is enough to take down an E-rank hunter.
No need to use mana.
Fighting without leaving a trace.
That was the key to this rescue.
With a simple combo attack, five more E-rank hunters went down.
"Ughhh."
The guy in front of me had his jaw fractured by a single punch.
He'll have to give up on eating by himself for the rest of his life.
"Arghhh!"
I shattered the other guy's shoulders, bones and all.
He won't even look at this kind of work in the future.
There was also a guy whose pelvis I smashed.
"Urgh, urgh! St-stop!!!"
I broke all his ankles and wrists, and severed his Achilles tendons.
I turned them into mush, one by one.
Thoroughly, so they wouldn't even be able to show their faces in this industry again.
"Y-you bastard! Do you think you'll be safe after touching us?"
Gu Jeong-mu stepped back in surprise.
I'm sick of typical threatening lines.
"You're the one who picked the wrong opponent."
I smashed the wrists of the other terrified E-rank hunters.
The party's only D-rank hunter ran away to escape.
"Where do you think you're going?"
"Eek!"
"You call yourself a hunter, yet you're just throwing punches in a back alley. Have some shame."
You get an extra charge for being annoying.
I struck the guy's jaw.
After snapping his ankles, I tore his muscles.
"Ughhh!"
It was a painful process, enough to make the guy who fainted from a punch to the jaw wake up and scream again.
After clearing out all the hunters, I approached the last one left, Gu Jeong-mu.
"Hiiik! Y-you m-monster..."
The guy, whose legs had given out, sat on the floor and scrambled backward every time I approached.
A pungent stench hit my nose, so I looked.
Drip.
He was pissing himself.
"A grown adult, pissing himself out in public. Aren't you ashamed?"
"Y-you... you clearly said... let's do business together..."
"Yeah. Business. I was going to, but I changed my mind."
"What?"
"I think it's better if I meet the Sword Saint alone."
Sorry, Mr. Sword Saint. I'm going to use your name a bit.
"Y-you, you son of a bitch!"
"If you swear one more time, I'll make sure you're in a condition where you can only communicate through sign language."
"......."
"You said the money Yoo Ara has to pay back is 105.5 million won, right?"
"......."
"I was thinking about it, and it turns out there's some money you and I need to settle separately."
"What is that..."
"The 15 million won for the phone call I just had with you, 30 million won for giving me the Sword Saint's phone number, and 2 million won for the trouble of beating these guys up. And finally, 40 million won for the mental damages our student Yoo Ara suffered."
To think the Sword Saint's phone number is only 30 million won; this is practically a steal.
I thought about charging more for the phone bill, but that would be too much of a rip-off, so I reasonably called it 15 million.
"Wh-where is that kind of calculation..."
"Do you have a complaint?"
I pointed to the hunters lying over there.
Some were twitching while unconscious, unable to even scream.
"You don't want to end up like them, do you?"
"Urgh..."
I still remember.
The words this piece of filth spat out.
Mosquito-like guys who try to suck money out of you by making excuses about ridiculous interest rates and service fees.
"If we plus-minus it all, it's exactly 500,000 won."
"You son of a..."
"Didn't I tell you? If you run your mouth the wrong way, I'll smash it."
"Hup!"
I took out ten 50,000 won bills.
It was the moment 15 million won became 500,000 won.
"Take it. And hand over the promissory note."
"Th-this is..."
"You're the one who started it, aren't you?"
Gu Jeong-mu took the 500,000 won, trembling.
And he pulled out the promissory note he had.
"This is the original, right? If you try to pull any tricks with a fake, know that everything from your business to your house and your family will disappear from this world."
Gu Jeong-mu, admitting defeat, nodded.
His face turned pale.
Loan amount: 15 million won.
Annual compound interest: 120%.
"120% is already shameless, but this bastard, he added 45 million in interest in less than a year?"
"I-I'm sorry."
Whoosh!
I burned the promissory note stating Yoo Ara had borrowed 15 million won.
"With this, there's nothing left between you and Ara, right?"
"Y-yes..."
"Don't go acting up trying to get revenge; Miss Yoo Ara will soon be under the protection of the Sword Saint."
"......."
The guy clenched his fists.
Sword Saint.
The Guild Master of the Twilight Guild, a mid-sized guild. In terms of pure martial prowess, he was a hunter within the top five in the country.
He wasn't someone a small-time local loan shark could dare to challenge.
"Oh, and take this."
"Huh?"
"It's for hospital bills."
I handed a 10,000 won bill to his hand.
"I have to collect the price for making our student look like that."
I twisted the wrist of Gu Jeong-mu, who was looking at me as if he didn't understand.
Crack!
"Arghhhh!!!"
"That won't heal well even if you get it treated. From now on, look at that and ruminate on today's events. Got it?"
"Huck, huck, arghhh!!!"
Gu Jeong-mu couldn't handle the pain and passed out cold.
I placed a 10,000 won bill on each of the hunters' chests and approached Yoo Ara.
She looked at me with a confused expression.
Rip!
"Eek!"
"How did you get caught by guys like this, you careless girl?"
I untied the ropes binding her whole body.
"Is, is it really true?"
"What?"
"That you were going to s-sell me to a guild."
I glanced at the unconscious Gu Jeong-mu and shook my head.
"Would I sell you?"
"Th-then?"
"You are a valuable resource for our guild. I have no intention of handing you over. Not unless you finish your contract period and leave."
"But surely the Sword Saint..."
"Yeah. That old man will protect you. But that's not because you're joining his guild, but because you're my disciple."
"Was... that it?"
"Yeah. Sorry. I bluffed a bit because I was worried you might have some strange magic cast on you."
I patted Yoo Ara's head.
"Waaaaah!"
Then Yoo Ara suddenly started crying.
"Hey, why are you crying?"
"I, I thought you were really going to sell me, sniff, I misunderstood, hic, I was so scared, sob, I was really terrified. You were the only person I could trust, waaah, Teacher. Waaaaah!!!"
I had forgotten for a moment because of the storm-like performance she showed in the academy exam, but Yoo Ara was just a 21-year-old, a novice in society who had only recently become an adult.
She must have been very scared.
She must have been terrified.
"They said if I didn't follow, they'd take Mom and Dad hostage. Sniff, they said they'd do something if I didn't come, sob, so I got captured instead, sniff, and then you, Teacher, you were like that too... Waaaaah."
She cried sorrowfully, as if the world were ending.
It wasn't that I hadn't considered her feelings, but...
"I'm sorry."
"No, it's okay. Thank you. Teacher, really, thanks to you... I survived. You even paid off the money for me. I'll pay it all back later when I get my scholarship."
Yoo Ara, who had been crying with tears and snot streaming down, sniffled.
"We'll talk about that later, first wipe your tears with this."
I handed her a neatly folded handkerchief.
"Th-thank you. Hng!"
"Are your parents okay?"
"Yes, I was captured on the condition that they wouldn't touch them."
"That's a relief. Let's go for now. Let's talk about the details when we get back."
"C-can we go quickly?"
"Why?"
Yoo Ara, who was squirming with her legs crossed, bit her lip tightly.
"I, I need to pee."
Did the tension release and make her bladder give out?
"Why don't you just go here?"
"T-Teacher, you just said it. That it's shameful for a grown adult to piss themselves outside."
"You already did it once in front of me..."
"L-let's go! Quickly! I really think I'm going to pee."
"Alright. Let's go."
We left the loan shark gang, who were practically corpses, and returned to Yoo Ara's house.
"Thank you so much. Oh my... thank you so much."
I told Yoo Ara's parents that I had reached an amicable agreement with the company and paid off only the principal.
I added that since I used the Twilight Guild's name, something like this wouldn't happen in the future.
"You can pay me back when Miss Yoo Ara's scholarship comes in."
"Thank you so much. I really thought something was going to happen..."
"Mom, stop crying. It's okay. I'm fine."
Yoo Ara comforting her parents with swollen eyes.
It was a heartwarming family scene.
"Well, since you're here, why don't you have a meal..."
"No. It's fine. I've eaten enough. Since I'm here, I'm thinking of conducting a brief lesson for Miss Ara. May I use Ara's room?"
"I don't mind, but..."
"Ara, are you okay? You must be exhausted."
Her parents asked with worried faces.
Naturally, they would be worried since she had just been kidnapped.
"I'm fine. I'm always ready to take Teacher's lessons. I got 1st place thanks to Si-woo Teacher!"
"Is that so?"
I went up to her room, receiving thanks from Yoo Ara's parents.
I locked the door and...
"Take off your clothes. I need to check for injuries."
I ordered Yoo Ara.