The Seed of Conflict (3)
The club was loud and rowdy, thick with cigarette smoke and bodies grinding together beneath the lights onstage. Even tall women carrying bottles of liquor that sparked like fireworks were weaving through the crowd.
What a funny world. Outside, Gates opened every other day and monsters ran wild, yet in one corner of the human world, pleasure and indulgence still went on as if nothing had changed.
“This way.”
Director Bin gestured toward the stairs.
The guards on duty bowed to him and stepped aside. I followed him up the stairs.
So that’s the layout.
When I reached the second floor, the whole club spread out below me. People standing by the railing sipped their drinks and swayed to the music. Most of them were men in flashy clothes plastered with luxury logos. A few were openly pointing at the women below, and a man who looked like a tout was nodding rapidly as he hurried down the stairs.
Looks like they’re fishing. The tout grabbed a woman by the wrist and tried to lead her upstairs. A scene of enthusiastic courtship, if you wanted to call it that.
Director Bin pointed down a long corridor.
“From here on, these are the VVIP rooms.”
It was a strange setup. Glass rooms stretched out in a neat row before me. From outside, the interior was completely visible, though white curtains divided each section.
“Twelve… hmm. No, that’s not right. There are only ten rooms in total. One was just canceled, so let’s use that one.”
Director Bin led me forward. As I walked down the corridor and looked into the VVIP rooms, I saw men and women laughing, chatting, and drinking. In one corner, hidden behind white curtains, a man and woman were locked in a deep kiss.
The only odd thing is... the numbers embossed on the doors were Roman numerals.
As I looked around, I noticed something else strange. My nose twitched on its own.
Hm? This is...
Director Bin stopped.
“Here it is.”
The door was marked X.
I opened the glass door and stepped inside. A luxury sofa lined the walls, and champagne sat on the center table.
“If there’s a particular liquor you’d like, we can add it.”
Director Bin clasped both hands politely.
“Then how do I pay?”
I held out my black card.
“Heh. I like a man who goes all in.”
Director Bin took the card and turned away, then looked back at me.
“Are you here alone, by any chance?”
“Is that a problem?”
“Not exactly, but…”
He shrugged.
“Women who come alone are pretty rare. Two is better, at least. For team play.”
Director Bin pointed toward the stage below.
I understood what he meant. If a man and a woman wanted to enjoy the VVIP room together, they needed a partner.
He wants me to bring someone? My goal wasn’t women. I had no intention of spending the night casually enjoying a club either. Still… for cover, it does make sense.
I took out my phone. Let’s see. My hand naturally went to Karki’s contact.
“Can I bring a foreigner?”
“A foreigner?”
“Yeah. A Nepali guy.”
“Well, there’s nothing stopping you, but…”
Director Bin trailed off with a tight, almost reluctant look.
I checked the time. Karki was a man of proper habits. More often than not, he went to bed before midnight and woke up early.
He’s probably asleep already.
Director Bin said,
“A tall, handsome man like you would be even better, sir.”
Among the men I knew, someone like that was...
Just the factory old-timers.
And if I limited it to people around my age...
Na Sang-min?
I shook my head hard. If I dragged that mad dog in here, I had no idea what he’d do. It would be like throwing a flaming rugby ball with a mind of its own onto the field.
Someone worth calling...
By process of elimination, there was only one left.
I pressed the call button. After a few rings, the other side picked up.
“Choi Yongki?”
The voice rose at the end, amused.
“You’re the one calling me? What’s the occasion? At this hour, too.”
It was Lee Ji-jun, the white-haired hunter. Out of everyone I knew, he was the most handsome man.
“Did you get sent on a raid?”
“No.”
“Then what is it?”
“Come have a drink with me.”
“……”
Silence poured through the receiver.
Yeah, this is absurd. We weren’t close enough to drink together casually.
Can’t be helped. Lee Ji-jun was the only one I could call for help on short notice.
“It’s loud as hell. Where are you?”
“Red Moon.”
“What? The Gangnam club?”
So it really was famous.
“Sorry for the sudden call. If you can’t make it, I understa—”
“I’m coming.”
Lee Ji-jun answered briefly and hung up.
“Oh? You called a friend?” Director Bin said as he opened the glass door.
“I’ll have one of our promoters keep you company. Just ask if you need anything. Ah, and for the record, the VVIP rooms don’t have CCTV. You can enjoy your privacy as much as you like. Well then.”
Director Bin curved his red lips into a seductive smile.
“I hope you have a wonderful time.”
“Here, have a drink.”
I held out the whiskey bottle, and Lee Ji-jun took the glass.
“You go to clubs too, Choi Yongki? That’s… unexpected.”
“Why? Did you think I’d never meet a woman?”
“Yeah. I figured you’d die alone as a lifelong shut-in and get found after rotting from illness or something.”
This bastard. He was oddly sharp.
How the hell does he know what my last life was like?
Just then, the door flew open and the promoter came in.
“Trust me, all right? These are the best-looking girls in the place.”
Led by the promoter, two women followed behind.
“There you go again. Liar.”
One of the women snorted primly.
The other said nothing.
“Just take a look before you complain. Ta-da! Today’s Red Moon VVIP!”
“You lie like you eat three meals a day...”
The prim-looking woman looked at Lee Ji-jun and her mouth fell open.
“Whoa.”
And then, as if spellbound, she slipped into the room.
“Well... I guess I can talk a little.”
She sat down beside Lee Ji-jun as though she had no choice in the matter.
Good. Bringing Lee Ji-jun was the right move.
The seating arrangement fell into place naturally: one woman beside Lee Ji-jun, the other beside me.
The woman next to Lee Ji-jun chattered nonstop.
“Oppa, you’re seriously handsome. You look unreal, you know that?”
“Hmph.”
Lee Ji-jun ignored her and kept drinking glass after glass.
Meanwhile, the woman beside me just watched me in silence.
Up close, she was quite beautiful. Skin as white as snow, pink-dyed hair, a sweet scent drifting from the nape of her neck, and crescent-moon earrings hanging at her ears.
She asked,
“What do you do?”
“I fight.”
I cut down monsters, hacked them apart, killed them. Hunters did all sorts of things, but that was the simplest way to put it.
“Nice. Fight for me sometime, okay?”
She smiled faintly and held out her glass.
“Sure.”
I touched my glass to hers without thinking.
“Here. Eat this.”
She held out a caramel candy.
“I quit smoking recently, so I’ve been eating these instead. Grape flavor.”
She peeled the wrapper herself and put it in my mouth. As I chewed, a cheap fake grape taste spread across my tongue.
“Tastes good.”
“I like you, oppa. Let’s see each other again later. I’ll come by.”
She smiled brightly and stood up.
After that, several women came and went from the glass room. They were disguised as customers, and I spent a while watching the surroundings.
Nothing suspicious.
It was a perfectly ordinary club. Nothing more, nothing less.
For now, anyway.
By the time the table was stacked with strong whiskey, Lee Ji-jun finally slurred at me with half-lidded eyes.
“Hey. Choi Yongki.”
He’s weaker than he looks.
Lee Ji-jun pointed at me with his index finger.
“I hate you. I hate you so much.”
That drunk bastard’s kind of cute when he’s complaining.
“No, wait. Sometimes I like you. No, actually, you’re a total pain in the ass. No, wait...”
Lee Ji-jun let out a long sigh.
“I’m jealous of you.”
His drunken confession continued.
“I want to be like you. I want to get strong like you, and I want to get along with people like you do.”
Jealous, huh. I’d once looked up to someone too.
A hero I’d loved since I was a kid.
My idol, Zin Shark.
Because of him, I gained the Purchase talent and gradually took hold of a hero’s powers, one after another.
“You don’t need to be jealous. I’m weaker than you.”
That was true, too. The source of my power was the Awakener’s Balance.
If I spent all my money right now...
Lee Ji-jun would be the one with the superior raw talent.
“Pfft. You’re trying to comfort me? Don’t pity me. That just makes it more pathetic.”
I’m serious.
Lee Ji-jun barely managed to lift his head.
“Just wait. Someday I’ll absolutely surpass you. Seriously. I’m going to...”
His head dropped, and he collapsed.
Silence settled inside the glass room. Outside, the thumping music kept pounding away.
I stood up, took off my hooded jacket, and draped it over Lee Ji-jun’s shoulders.
All right. Let’s get to work.
I scanned the ceiling.
The defining feature of a VVIP room: no CCTV, just as Director Bin had said.
No matter what a man and woman did here, whether they fought or even took drugs, no one outside would ever know.
I stepped out into the corridor and looked left and right. I hadn’t missed Director Bin’s slip of the tongue.
“Twelve… hmm. There are only ten rooms in total.”
Exactly. There were twelve rooms in all.
Then what about the remaining two hidden rooms?
I reached the dead end at the end of the hallway. I pushed against the wall, and a hidden space was revealed.
Just as I thought.
If Director Bin hadn’t misspoken, would I have found this place?
No way. Because...
“Hah.”
I drew in a deep breath.
The air reeks of blood.
A thick, cloying scent of blood.
It’s not a monster. It was the foul stench that rose only from human innards.
The source is...
I turned my head.
The doors were marked XI and XII.
Slowly, I pulled a mask from my pocket and drew a purple face covering over my head.
I opened one of the two doors and stepped inside.
“……”
The shocking sight left me wordless.
The interior had the same basic layout: sofa, center table.
But plastic had been spread over everything, as if to keep the blood from splattering anywhere.
“Hey. Hold it properly. It keeps shaking.”
“Damn it. It keeps slipping. Why the hell is it flopping around so much?”
Two men with masks over their faces were on top of a woman.
They were holding a saw to her arm. The sawing had already begun, and half of her slender, pale skin had been cut open.
“M-mmph!”
With tape over her mouth, the woman thrashed helplessly.
Another man stood off to the side, filming with a camera.
I tried to make sense of the scene through the chaos.
A snuff film?
The proper term was a snuff film. Not special effects or a cinematic technique, but footage of an actual murder.
The first secret hidden inside Red Moon.
Three intruders were filming the mutilation of a woman.
“Shit. Why the hell is my blade so dull today?”
“She’s got some weirdly tough bones… huh?”
One of the men holding the saw spotted me.
“...Who are you?”
“Did we have another guest tonight?”
“No. I didn’t hear anything about that from Director Bin.”
They climbed down off the woman and walked toward me. Blood dripped from the saw in the man’s hand.
“Hey. Who are you?”
“Why are you dressed like that?”
I didn’t look at them.
My eyes stayed fixed on the woman tied to the table.
Pink hair.
Crescent-moon earrings.
The sweet scent that had drifted from her neck...
With one eye caved in, she stared at me through a face slick with tears.
The tape peeling from her mouth, she said,
“P-please... save me.”
Suddenly, that cheap grape flavor spread through my mouth again.
A wave of sickening nausea rose in my throat.
“Hey. He asked who the hell you are.”
“This bastard... something’s off about him.”
I remembered what she had said to me when we’d spoken for that brief moment.
“Nice. Fight for me sometime, okay?”
At that instant, I remembered why I had become the Purple Devil.
To judge the wicked.
To destroy evil.
And to be free from all the laws and order of the world, from morality and convention.
That was the freedom I wanted.
So the only thing I had to do was...
“Hey. Call Director Bin.”
“No, wait. This bastard, let’s grab him fir—”
I thrust both hands forward.
I gathered my mana and threw my fist with all my strength.
If I followed Judgment of the Superhuman...
BOOM!!!
The two men holding the saw exploded from the skull up, their heads bursting apart with their skulls.
Sticky blood splattered across the plastic-covered wall.
The headless bodies staggered around, still clutching the saws as they struggled not to collapse.
“H-hiiii!”
The one who had been filming screamed.
I brought my index finger to my lips.
“Quiet. You piece of trash.”
Hot blood ran down from the purple mask.
Swallowing the rage boiling up inside me, I said in a low voice,
“From now on, answer the questions I ask you.”