Chapter 87
Translator: TrueDetective
Chapter: 87
Chapter Title: 25. Is It Okay to Gamble? Even the Monk? (1)
“Heavenly Demon hyung, are you seriously going to Las Vegas with that bastard?! Come on, think it over one more time—”
“Cut it out and get going. You’re gonna be late for your schedule.”
“Let go of me! That guy’s trying to poison our group!”
Jaha, who was trying to drag me away, was forcibly loaded into the van by Taeguki and the Alliance Leader.
Namgung Mu paused as he was about to climb in, looking over at us with a worried expression.
“…Our hyung often went along with that madman’s antics. One out of ten times, something went wrong… but I sincerely hope you all come back safe.”
After Namgung Mu left those words—which I couldn’t tell were encouragement or a curse—and got in, the van finally pulled away.
I watched it go until it was a good distance off, then turned around.
The Heavenly Demon, Dang Sa-cheon, and Nahani.
Just adding Nahani to the mix made for an incredibly strange lineup.
“So… you’re really serious about going to Las Vegas?”
“Yes.”
Dang Sa-cheon nodded without a hint of hesitation before speaking.
“Hyung, you’re going to establish the Hao Gate soon, right?”
“That’s right…?”
“I don’t know how much capital you’ve prepared. But you need to multiply it when the opportunity arises.”
Multiply the capital when the opportunity arises…?
“…You’re saying we should gamble to build up the capital?”
“Exactly. Manipulating cards is child’s play for the head of the Tang family. If needed, I can even transmit the opponent’s hand via sound transmission.”
No, this lunatic.
My mind went blank.
“I get the gist of your intention. But Nahani, why are you insisting on coming along? You…”
Was there a polite way to put this?
“Monk… is it okay for you to go to a place like that?”
“I’m an idol, not a monk.”
Then don’t call yourself “Little Victory”!
“No, no. Idols shouldn’t go to places like gambling dens either.”
Snapping out of it late, I tried to dissuade Nahani, and Dang Sa-cheon backed me up.
“You’re right about that. Which is why it was just going to be Soi hyung and me—the two of us. We’re just lowly managers. If the cult leader or a Nine Great Sects member went on a gambling expedition? That’d be a scandal. But two Nine Great Sects managers going gambling? Who gives a damn about a couple of nobodies, no matter how much they win?”
He sure says “nobodies” without believing it himself.
And Dang Sa-cheon, this guy…
He seemed dead serious about building assets through gambling.
Well, I hadn’t completely ignored the capital issue myself.
Calculating the money I’d saved so far plus my severance pay came out to about 1 billion won.
Not a small sum, but not enough to start an agency either.
Still, going to Las Vegas for it?
“Do we really have to gamble to grow our assets?”
“Since none of us is a regressor—only transmigrators and reincarnators—no riding the crypto wave. Gambling’s the only way to make big money fast.”
What the hell was he talking about?
How many webnovels has this guy read?
“But it is surprising that Nahani sunbae wants to tag along. Is there something you’re worried about?”
Dang Sa-cheon had a habit of respectfully adding “sunbae” to members who debuted before him, even if they were younger.
It was oddly polite in a way that made him seem even more like a total asshole…
“A simple reason.”
Nahani replied in a calm tone.
“I don’t want to spend my vacation alone with the Heavenly Demon.”
“What?!”
The Heavenly Demon, who’d been silently listening, suddenly looked offended.
“Do you think this seat likes you, you punk? Hate me all you want, but at least pretend to get along since we’re in the same group. I’m not asking for friendship!”
Nahani let out a small sigh at the Heavenly Demon’s heated reaction.
“Heavenly Demon, it’s not that I hate you… My master raised Little Victory as your rival. Those who’ve learned the Anti-Demon Divine Art feel revulsion in the presence of demonic qi. Just being around you like this… it’s torture.”
Come to think of it, sunbae had taught Nahani the Demon Absorption Art.
That explained why he’d always been prickly toward the Heavenly Demon—because the art made his qi feel repulsive?
In that case…
Did the Masked Expert, who also used the Demon Absorption Art, feel the same around the Heavenly Demon?
More importantly… if the Demon Absorption Art was the martial art sunbae taught Nahani…
How did the Masked Expert know it?
…
Honestly speaking.
I suspected the Masked Expert was the Alliance Leader.
It didn’t make sense for Nahani, disciple of the former Shaolin abbot, to be doing shady work under the cult leader.
And the Alliance Leader had shown plenty of suspicious behavior up to now.
Like how quickly he accepted the Heavenly Demon’s existence at first sight.
Or how he didn’t seem all that shocked during the onsen incident.
The most damning was the day Shin Tae-eul’s accident hit the news feeds.
He’d asked Jaha to monitor a drama—something he never usually bothered with.
Back then, I was too shocked by Shin Tae-eul’s death to think deeply about it.
But if Jaha hadn’t been watching that drama at the time…
A guy like Jaha, who never watches the news, would’ve missed the breaking story about a body found in the Han River.
‘But…’
The weird part was.
Because the Alliance Leader asked, Jaha saw the news bulletin.
And that led him to cooperate with the Hao Gate plan.
Which ended up with me breaking into the cult leader’s house…
‘Even if the Alliance Leader is the Masked Expert.’
-I want to stop the former representative. This isn’t a lie.
I was sure those words were sincere.
I didn’t know if he was really the rep’s son or not.
But if he was the Masked Expert, he could’ve been pretending to cooperate with the rep while plotting something else.
If the Alliance Leader had his own plans, we had zero reason to expose him as the Masked Expert and interrogate him.
He’d need to keep his identity hidden from the rep to play double agent…
As I seemed lost in thought, Dang Sa-cheon asked Nahani in my place.
“You’re really coming along? The Heavenly Demon being spotted in Las Vegas carries a different weight than Nahani sunbae being spotted there.”
“Hey, Dang brat, I’m right here listening.”
“No offense, but Heavenly Demon-nim, you’re a foreigner. Gambling abroad is illegal in Korea.”
Beyond just nationality, I agreed the implications were different for the two.
The Heavenly Demon already had a history of scandals.
Adding gambling wouldn’t shock anyone—they’d just say “typical.”
But for Nahani, the fallout would be huge.
Even if he didn’t gamble, just being seen there would drag him through every scandal imaginable.
A popular member of a top idol group was surrounded by enemies on all sides.
Just his “I’m quitting” comment had spawned a flood of sensational headlines.
“What’s true is that Nahani sunbae has a cleaner image than Heavenly Demon-nim. But no image survives getting tangled in gambling. Straight to rock bottom.”
Was it okay to talk about Shaolin affiliates going to hell?
Wasn’t that basically telling a Christian they’re headed for damnation?
“Amitabha. As long as I have no shame before Buddha, that’s enough.”
“Don’t underestimate idols. You’re the group’s most popular member—do you think the fandom holds up just because you feel confident?”
Who’d have thought I’d live to see the Heavenly Demon lecturing a Shaolin disciple on idols.
“No.”
Nahani shook his head firmly at the Heavenly Demon’s words.
“Frankly, the current fandom size… it’s dangerously large.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You must’ve heard from master… but with ‘that matter,’ a fandom this size will just get exploited.”
If he was referring to “that matter” in front of the Heavenly Demon… he meant establishing the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.
Beggar Clan disciples varied by seniority, but most had some internal energy.
They’d trained the members in it to summon the Heavenly Demon… and released the cultivation method to the world.
The cult leader was deliberately cultivating murim folk in this world.
‘Is he planning to turn all those trained murim people into cult followers…?’
No, but…
Converting the entire Nine Great Sects fandom into the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult seemed impossible.
Even if the Heavenly Demon became the world’s top idol, he couldn’t make them all fans… right?
The Heavenly Demon himself looked indifferent, true to form for someone who needed tons and tons of fans.
“I wondered what you were on about. More fans is always better. ‘Too many fans are risky’? That’s not something an idol says. Plus, your fandom’s the biggest anyway.”
“It wasn’t intentional.”
“…For a second there, I almost said you sounded possessed.”
Anyway, Nahani seemed dead set on spending his vacation with us.
If he just didn’t want to be alone with the Heavenly Demon, great.
But no matter how I thought about it, that couldn’t be the only reason.
Maybe he had a message for me while away from the Heavenly Demon.
“Alright, so Nahani’s joining us for vacation… and we’ll think more about Las Vegas.”
“What’s to think about? Instead of agonizing, we should leverage Soi hyung’s IQ of 200 plus this family head’s five years of internal energy—for a total of 205—to devise a perfect strategy.”
Never mind the absurd IQ 200 assumption—why treat my five years of internal energy as just five?
“Isn’t that math a bit off?”
“No, Soi. Even converting IQ, it won’t make much difference.”
How cutting.
“We’re just managers now… but if we dip into gambling, it could bite us later when we start the agency. You don’t wanna debut just to become a controversy magnet, right?”
“True… but considering the cult’s capital, we need to prepare accordingly.”
I knew what Dang Sa-cheon was worried about.
Even with a dozen murim folk, this wasn’t the central plains—it was a capitalist grindstone.
Unless we went rogue as unorthodox sects, no money meant no moves.
…That Dang Sa-cheon was going legit (??) with gambling instead of evil sect tactics was the real surprise.
‘Gambling, huh…’
There was one person who seemed to know all about that stuff.
Right then, as if on cue, my phone rang.
I checked the caller and felt a chill down my spine.
-Good afternoon, Soi.
“…Lion Representative.”
This timing—real life or what?
I’d definitely ditched the phone with the tracker…
“What’s up?”
-I sensed the aura of gambling somewhere.
Was he serious?
Should we call this guy the Gambling Demon instead of the Heavenly Demon?
But somehow… I had a feeling he’d have answers for this situation.
“Lion Representative.”
-Yes~?
“By any chance…”
I pressed on quickly.
“Do you have a favorite gambling spot you could recommend?”
-……?
There was a long pause from Lion Representative.
“…Representative?”
-Oh… sorry. I’ve had people ask me to introduce them to others, but never to introduce a casino…
“I understand.”
-It’s not a tough request. But why the sudden interest in gambling?
Was it innocent curiosity, or probing as the cult leader’s right-hand man? Couldn’t tell.
In times like these, playing crazy worked best.
I continued in a flat tone.
“Do you need a reason… to gamble?”
-OK. Let’s go mad with gambling.
His speech pattern got weird.
Whatever.
-I’m thrilled Soi’s discovered the thrill of gambling.
“Thanks to you, Representative.”
-It’s all my virtue.
“……?”
…Right. His name was Yang Deok.
I’d forgotten, calling him Lion Representative so much.
-Anyway, I’ll send you an invite separately.
“An invite?”
-Yeah, it’s my private casino. See you there next time…
A private casino—perfect.
…Or so I thought.
The next instant, hearing the casino’s name from Lion Representative, I regretted it a little.
-Meet at my casino, [Hundred Thousand Great Mountains].
Hundred Thousand Great Mountains… wasn’t that the Demonic Cult’s headquarters?
Why name a casino that?