The Great Cleanup
Just as bugs are drawn to sweet honey, vermin are inevitably drawn to money.
These were the shadows that had always existed since society first formed.
Since they were starting fresh with renewed resolve, it was only right to clean them up, wasn't it?
It was time for a thorough spring cleaning!
"Kill them."
““No way!””
"Tear them apart."
““No way!!””
"Cut them down."
““No waaaay—!!””
Perfect.
With Jang Ji-na leading the charge,
“Let’s gooooo—!”
““Let’s goooooooooo.””
She kicked off the ground with a powerful shout and leaped into the air.
The target was a firmly shut door.
The solid steel door was reinforced with barbed wire and covered in every kind of metal fixture imaginable. The chains wrapped between them were almost tear-jerking in their thoroughness, but…
“Hup!”
The moment Jang Ji-na’s foot made contact, the steel door crumpled like tofu.
BOOOOOOM—◎#&#!#!!
With a deafening roar, the surrounding walls collapsed along with it.
The door that had flown back was now embedded in the opposite wall, trembling violently.
Even though it was solid steel, the footprint stamped into it was crystal clear.
It was every bit as terrifying as Jang Ji-na’s gleaming fangs flashing through the dust.
Gulp!
Whoosh!
By the time they thought it was too late, it already was.
Jang Ji-na charged straight in.
She didn’t even bother with a greeting, as if she had any intention of accepting surrender.
It began with Jang Ji-na at the front, her fist colliding with a wooden bat. Both sides tangled together instantly.
A massive clash of bodies erupted in a single breath.
The interior quickly turned into a scene of utter chaos.
!◎#!&!◎#$#!!
Crash! Bang! Clatter! Thud!
The sounds of violent impacts exploded everywhere.
The resistance was fierce.
“Dieeeeeee!!”
“You sons of bitches, get him!”
“If we’re going down anyway, let’s die together!”
Clubs and bats sliced through the air.
The sound of shattering wood, furious curses, and a few even swung hidden cleavers while spitting venomous insults.
But don’t forget—these were the warriors of the Far East who could only survive if they were the strong ones.
They were the Slavic dragon… no, the employees of Brother Services, straight out of hell.
“Try harder, you punk. My grandma’s punch is stronger than that.”
“Oh, that was excellent just now. As a reward, big sis will only break your arm (crack).”
“Hey, you pig bastard. Exercise more. Stop thinking about getting tattoos all over your body. You idiot?”
Thick fists shattered wooden clubs. Bats were all split apart and turned into sawdust. They collected the molars from the ones who had been spewing rage.
Was the sound of bones breaking louder? Or the screams of the broken ones? A perfectly balanced laboratory of violence opened up.
For the ones throwing tantrums, they were put to sleep with a hairy forearm.
And for the irredeemable trash who had lost all fear and swung knives,
they were thrown to Jang Ji-na.
“Fuuuuck, this is it! This is what I’m talking about!!”
Whether scratched or cut, Jang Ji-na was bleeding profusely from her forearm.
Her battle instinct, now fully ignited, kept the corners of her mouth rising endlessly.
She hadn’t transformed into her beastman form to match their level, but this had its own charm.
“Like I always say, the most fun part of fighting is a good ol’ X-bath brawl!!”
Crunch!
She caught the knife with her bare hand and crushed it in an instant.
Then she sent a right hook flying into a jaw. She dislocated the shoulder of the coward who tried to jump her from behind. She grabbed the head of the screaming punk and smashed his face into another charging bastard’s lips.
And then.
So.
Thus.
Every time a conjunction was added, more people piled up around Jang Ji-na like rags.
There was only one way to end this fight’s description. When every single vermin in this building was crawling on the ground.
Only then would both the description and the fight come to an end.
“Spare me…”
“Don’t be such a coward. I’m not gonna kill you.”
“Gurgle…”
Thud—
With that, the last boss foamed at the mouth and collapsed. Jang Ji-na wiped her face.
Sweat, blood, and a bullet casing stuck in her forehead fell away, but her expression was one of pure refreshment.
“Huuu! That was fun.”
She neatly wiped her hands on one of the fallen men’s clothes, quenched her thirst with the Western liquor she’d gathered from the cabinet, and picked up her phone.
“Yeah, Boss. We’re done here. Heading to the next spot.”
* * *
Jang Antonton, who had taken the call, was smiling warmly.
“…Yeah, good work. Did you clean it up properly? Yeah, yeah, well done… The kids aren’t hurt, right? No, not our guys—the ones who got beat. We can’t have any noise…”
His rough yet somehow gentle Busan dialect should have warmed the atmosphere, but the surroundings were ice-cold.
The wall had been half torn away, and where windows used to be, there were now massive holes letting the wind whistle through.
In the midst of it all, people were embedded in the walls, kissing the floor, or slumped against the wall convulsing while wetting themselves.
Like a scene from a modern art exhibit, people were literally ‘scattered’ everywhere.
And the only one still maintaining a relatively intact appearance—the boss of the organization—was currently sitting in front of the beast that had turned his domain into this hellscape.
Clutching his violently trembling knees.
“Yeah, just hang in there a little longer. Yeah, got it. Remember, you absolutely cannot cause a big scene!”
Only after repeating his warnings several times did the call finally end. Jang Antonton smiled warmly and spoke.
“Ah, sorry about that. It was an important call. Where were we again?”
“……”
“Friend?”
“Ah, yeah. He said he stayed up all night talking with his wife again yesterday. He can’t sleep these days because of all the calls…”
“Look at me. Right, this is pretty much the only time we can talk, so it can’t be helped. Our family has a lot to catch up on.”
Jang Antonton spoke excitedly about his family.
It was strange. Weren’t Jang Antonton’s family supposed to be in Russia?
Moreover, because of Jang Antonton getting caught up in the civil war, they had been marked as persons of interest and should have been suffering the freezing Siberian winds under guilt by association.
Why else would Lee Shin have spent a fortune and even mobilized the Lee Do Group to improve their situation? It was because the environment was that brutal.
That was why Jang Antonton had been so grateful for the single photo Lee Shin had rescued, and why he willingly acted as Lee Shin’s hunting dog to repay the favor…
Yet now Jang Antonton was smiling brightly while talking about phone calls with his family.
He spoke of his wife, who was eagerly waiting because the days felt too long, with a huge grin on his face.
Just what was going on?
The timeline rewound to a little while ago.
It was the day before the official groundbreaking at the airport, when Jang Antonton had been drinking soju with Lee Shin over beef rice soup.
Jang Antonton had already known about the three facilities.
As the head of Brother Services, which worked closely with the intelligence team, he knew more than most.
But he had never imagined that all three would be crammed into Busan.
Logically, he had expected them to be split up somewhat.
No, to be precise, he thought it had to be that way. There was no way the country would allow one city to monopolize them.
Yet.
Lee Shin had swallowed them all anyway.
These were facilities that, according to economic experts, could change the very constitution of a nation by themselves. And he had shoved all of them into one city.
This went far beyond changing the constitution. It was on the level of completely destroying the city’s ecosystem.
Lee Shin understood this fact better than anyone. In fact, these facilities had been designed with exactly that goal in mind from the start.
However.
An international airport that every city dreamed of. An international mana stone exchange that could become a global hub. And an official item auction house that sucked in hunters and items like a black hole.
These were facilities that Middle Eastern tycoons, China with its claims of being a great power, and every country in the world had desperately wanted.
Yet Lee Shin said there was something more important than those facilities.
The essence that truly moved him. The root of the human called Lee Shin.
And the one and only truth.
The order had been reversed.
For Lee Shin, building those facilities wasn’t the important part.
Those facilities were only necessary to create a more magnificent guild.
From Yeongdo to the south, and then to the north.
Lee Shin had spread his influence throughout the city. Now that the time had come, he had begun the operation.
In this process, the nuclear bomb that would destroy the old order, and the vaccine that would minimize the growing pains.
Those were precisely the airport, the exchange, and the auction house.
Calling it an urban development project was an understatement.
It was a national project—perhaps even comparable to the total budget of a small nation.
In the process, the existing order would be buried. The economy would fade into the background. And in that noise, complaints and dissatisfaction would also be drowned out.
This moment, when everyone’s attention was focused, was the perfect opportunity.
Jang Antonton’s family. The families of the Brother Services employees. The ones who had been managed like half-hostages.
War was a disaster that left only the defeated fools and the victorious fools.
Especially a civil war fought on one’s own territory against one’s own citizens—that was a hell so wretched that even the devil would want to move away.
Lee Shin had been aiming for exactly this situation.
In a situation where they were already short on food, there was no insane person who would refuse when Lee Shin and the Lee Do Group offered to throw around huge sums of money.
Anyone who did would just get shot by some starving person.
The Russian side would be happy to earn even a single penny, Lee Shin and the Lee Do Group would get cheap labor, and Jang Antonton and his brothers would finally be able to meet the families they had longed for!
To be able to see their families. To rescue them from that hell so quickly.
That day, Jang Antonton shed tears for the first time since parting with his wife.
He never lost what was his.
He cherished what was his with terrifying intensity.
If Busan was Lee Shin’s land, then Jang Antonton and his brothers were his family.
Therefore, Jang Antonton had to repay the favor as always. By becoming his hunting dog.
“…The kids from Russia will be arriving soon. Managing them is my job. Crime, escape, illegal stay… and we’ve also been put in charge of incidents happening in the underworld here.”
And then.
“If any noise comes out of here, it’ll be really inconvenient for me.”
The moment he finished speaking, murderous intent exploded.
Shiver!
At some point, the beast had awakened in Jang Antonton’s eyes.
The boss’s body trembled violently. It was the killing intent of a male who had survived countless life-or-death situations and now carried the future of his wife and children on his back.
“I’ll put it simply.”
There was no need for long talk.
The content was extremely simple.
Because any negotiation would be completely one-sided.
Jang Antonton, who had already lit a cigarette, exhaled smoke and opened his mouth.
“Disband.”
* * *
“Hello? Intelligence team leader, miss. Everything’s been cleaned up here. Tell the district mayor. We’re moving to the next district. Yeah, good work.”