The Place Where Evil Vanished (2)
Going down the stairs, I found myself face-to-face with a silver door.
At its center was a round handle you’d normally only see on a ship’s bridge.
This is...
Old habits from my factory days kicked in, and I started poking and prodding it out of curiosity.
At first glance, it looked like an ordinary door.
But in reality, it was a giant safe.
They had turned the basement into a panic room and then built a vault right into it.
“It’s reinforced alloy. Even an oxy-fuel cutter would have a hard time getting through. And it’s got special fireproofing, so it won’t burn either.”
I was so impressed I ended up talking too much without meaning to.
Simon let out a sigh.
“So we’re starting with a roadblock. We can’t just slice it open with a sword, huh?”
I nodded, and Simon stroked her scabbard with obvious regret.
Just the thickness of the door looked like it was over 50 centimeters.
Even if we fired a bazooka at it, we’d have a hard time punching through.
Would it work if I used a hero skill?
I considered using Judgment of the Superhuman, which let me unleash monstrous strength in an instant.
But I quickly shook my head.
Worst possible option.
A giant safe like this was built so that the more force you hit it with from the outside, the more it caved inward.
It would end up like a shell clamping shut, making it even harder to pry open.
I could brute-force it until it gave, but—
The basement might collapse.
I couldn’t rule out the possibility that the other side of the door would be buried under dirt from the impact.
I’d rather not.
Simon said, “Should we look for a safe expert among the believers? Their jobs are all over the place, so there should be at least one. It’ll take a while, but with an expert’s help...”
“Don’t worry.”
I hadn’t come down here with no plan.
I had a card up my sleeve.
I patted Jo Jeong-hwan on the shoulder.
“Go on, Cult Leader-mon.”
“Yes, sir~!”
Jo Jeong-hwan flung the robe he was wearing aside and struck an exaggerated pose.
He looked ridiculous, but he was still a pretty reliable support.
Before cremating Jeong Myeong-su’s body, I had made Jo Jeong-hwan comb through every inch of the corpse.
Jo Jeong-hwan, with his Trans talent, could copy another person perfectly.
Height, weight, appearance, sex—that was just the beginning.
Fingerprints, voice, iris pattern, and more.
He had reproduced Jeong Myeong-su’s biological information right down the line.
“How is it? Can you open it?”
Jo Jeong-hwan lifted one corner of his mouth and stepped forward.
“Copy that.”
He answered with the sort of military English he used when he understood something.
He gripped the round handle tightly.
The machine built into the door lit up, and then it verified Jo Jeong-hwan’s fingerprints.
A camera mounted at the front scanned his face.
Then—
Ding!
Clack—
With a cheerful electronic chime, the lock came undone.
“Whoa...”
Even Simon, who usually treated Jo Jeong-hwan with indifference, covered her mouth with her hand and widened her eyes.
Not bad.
Jo Jeong-hwan had fooled the biometric system perfectly.
So cutting-edge science still can’t keep up with a human special ability.
I found myself marveling all over again at the mysterious world of mana.
Between me and Jo Jeong-hwan, there was no question I was overwhelmingly stronger.
But combat isn’t everything.
Just as Lee Yu-seol had identified my identity faster than anyone else with her Sense, Jo Jeong-hwan possessed a skill all his own.
And that led me to a simple conclusion.
If I wanted to keep growing as a hero, I needed to gather capable allies.
Jo Jeong-hwan twisted the handle.
“Ta-da. Now then, shall we enter the world of dreams and fantasy?”
When the thick silver door opened, the interior was revealed in full.
It looked like a study.
Bookshelves lined every wall, packed with all kinds of books.
“Eh? What’s this?”
Jo Jeong-hwan drooped his shoulders and twisted his mouth in disappointment.
“I had no idea Jeong Myeong-su was a bookworm. Not what I expected at all. I thought it’d be crammed full of gold bars.”
Simon flipped through the shelves.
“These are all ancient books on black magic. They’re valuable, sure, but did he really need to hide them this tightly?”
Jo Jeong-hwan grumbled.
“There’s property paperwork in here, too. Tch. What a letdown.”
Rubbing my chin, I surveyed the room.
Sprinklers were installed in the ceiling.
Alarms had been placed all over the place.
He was preparing for the books and important documents to catch fire.
Even so, it felt excessive.
That’s a little much.
Apparently a bit irritated, Jo Jeong-hwan started ransacking the shelves.
“No way! This can’t be all there is! There has to be something! At the very least, some porn magazines!”
He tore through the bookshelves.
Books spilled across the floor beneath him.
Simon swept her long blond hair back over her shoulder.
“Knock it off and let’s go. We still need to discuss Cheonyang-ji...”
“Hold on.”
Then Jo Jeong-hwan stopped.
Between the shelves, where books had been dumped in a heap, one thick hardback red book stood upright.
Because there was nothing supporting it on either side, it looked strange to anyone at a glance.
A book... is pressed against the wall.
The title on the hardback was The Life of the Chairman.
It sounded like an autobiographical account of Jeong Myeong-su, and I’d seen the same book once before in the library of the One and Only Holy Temple.
I walked up to Jo Jeong-hwan and raised a hand.
“Nice work, Cult Leader-mon.”
Jo Jeong-hwan, still clueless, high-fived me.
I stepped up to the bookshelf.
I grabbed the lone red book and pulled it.
With a metallic sound, the bookshelves on the right and left shifted at once.
Startled, Jo Jeong-hwan jumped back.
The sliding shelves disappeared into the wall.
Now that the bookshelves were gone, the space opened up considerably.
“Whoa. What is this now?”
Shelves filled the area on all sides.
It was practically a pantry—somewhere you’d store food.
Which made sense.
War, earthquakes, monster invasions—when emergency situations arose, you needed a place to hide and hold out for a long time.
But—
This isn’t food.
Instead of water, canned goods, and other supplies, the shelves were packed with rectangular bundles wrapped in transparent plastic.
Jo Jeong-hwan walked closer.
“What are they wrapping up so tightly? Drugs?”
A faint light struck the opaque plastic.
The contents inside were revealed.
“Huh?!”
Jo Jeong-hwan jumped.
I went over and pulled out White Revenge.
Using the tip of the blade, I sliced open the edge of the plastic.
Then I grabbed it boldly and tore it apart.
...
What had been sleeping beneath the thick plastic was gold-colored banknotes printed with the portrait of Shin Saimdang.
Bundles of 50,000-won bills.
And not just one or two.
The shelf was crammed full, with not a single gap left between the plastic-wrapped stacks.
Jo Jeong-hwan stammered, “H-how much money is this?”
Simon held up one of the 50,000-won bills and let the light shine through it.
“Not counterfeit either. I figured he’d have a lot of cash, but not this much.”
Jeong Myeong-su was the kind of man so paranoid he turned the Twelve Apostles into a cell-based organization.
Instead of putting his wealth in a bank or converting it into gold and jewels—
He kept everything in cash.
Only then did I understand why he’d installed a massive safe door in the study.
The study was just a trick.
The real thing was beyond it.
Two, four, six...
I counted the plastic-wrapped bundles on the shelves.
Then I eyeballed the size of one bundle.
If one stack of five million won is about two or three centimeters thick...
At the very least—
“That’s roughly over 100 billion won.”
Jo Jeong-hwan’s jaw dropped.
“A-a hundred billion?!”
Cha Chi-do, the gang boss who had seized the Ilsan Hunter Complex, had stolen somewhere in the hundreds of billions from his hidden stash.
As expected, the black money of Korea’s largest cult was on an entirely different scale.
Unlike the frantic Jo Jeong-hwan, Simon was oddly calm.
Maybe she’d already guessed that money on this level would be here.
Jo Jeong-hwan looked up.
“Hm?”
New shelves had appeared on the left and right, but straight ahead there was still another bookshelf in place.
“Looks like there’s more here. Heave-ho!”
Jo Jeong-hwan grabbed the shelf and shoved it sideways with all his strength.
Sure enough, the bookshelf facing us vanished too, revealing a new structure.
This time it wasn’t a pantry.
“Wow!”
Jo Jeong-hwan shouted.
It was like seeing the secret armory hidden behind the wardrobe in a movie.
Weapons of all kinds were laid out horizontally along the wall, sorted by type.
Chinese-style swords, the crescent-shaped curved sabers favored in the Mongolian region, European double-edged blades—they all stood out at a glance.
Simon brightened immediately.
“So the cult leader had a hobby of collecting rare swords.”
Just as I had marveled at the special vault as a factory worker, this was a whole other world to a swordswoman like Simon.
Her eyes shining, Simon examined the blades.
“Most of them are decorative, not for actual combat.”
For someone like Jeong Myeong-su, who could only use magic, to have a hobby of collecting swords—well, maybe it wasn’t only a hobby.
Just as rich people collect expensive paintings, he probably kept a sword collection as an investment.
Jo Jeong-hwan got distracted too.
“You’ve got to be kidding! Is that a Change Bead? The artifact that randomly changes your talent? I think that’s it! Oh, it is!”
As Jo Jeong-hwan poked the bead-shaped artifact with his finger, its interior shifted into iridescent colors.
There were also smaller curios on display, like ambrosia said to be more effective than potions, a pocket watch powered by mana, and instruments played by elves.
“If there’s anything you want, take it. Just leave the cash bundles alone.”
“Really?”
“Seriously?”
Simon and Jo Jeong-hwan lit up like children.
“Then I’ll take Kusanagi. This looks like it’d work in real combat too.”
“Ahem. I’ll just take one or two.”
Simon took the Japanese sword, while Jo Jeong-hwan stuffed more than ten items into the inside pockets of his robe, then glanced at me and said, “What about you, sir?”
“I’m fine.”
I already had Heoksikdo and White Revenge, so I had enough weapons.
As for the rest of the items...
Compared to hero abilities, they’re not that impressive.
I was about to leave the room with little interest when blue light spilled out from behind the display of swords.
No way.
As if bewitched, I followed the light.
At first I thought it was just a piece of fancy blue fabric spread out there.
I grabbed the blue cloth and tugged.
Schrrk.
It was a fabric so light it felt like feathers, yet so tightly woven that it had real substance.
“Blue Knight.”
It was sea dragon hide that still hadn’t even been reported to the association at the time of my rebirth.
Sea dragons were monsters that only emerged from gates in the deep ocean, which made sightings in themselves rare.
How Jeong Myeong-su had gotten his hands on it didn’t matter.
The instant I discovered a raw material perfect for making a hero suit, I started moving without even thinking.
Like a hero draping a cape over his shoulders, I wrapped myself in the Blue Knight and tied it in place.
“Eureka.”
“It’s just a scrap of cloth, isn’t it?”
While Jo Jeong-hwan muttered under his breath, Simon slung her sword across her shoulder and secured it.
“What are you going to do about that?”
Simon pointed at the stacks of cash wrapped in plastic.
On paper, it was money that didn’t exist in the world.
Even if someone walked off with it, it wouldn’t matter.
And nobody had the authority to stop them.
“Choi Yongki. You decide. I’ll follow your lead.”
Simon left the black money to my judgment.
I was the one who had eliminated Jeong Myeong-su.
And I was the one currently controlling Cheonyang-ji.
What can we use right now...
Then someone came to mind.
The little girl I had met not long ago.
And the children.
Even in the dead of winter, those kids washed their faces with cold water, and because they couldn’t run the boiler properly, they slept in places that were freezing.
When it was time to eat, they had to travel all the way to a shabby old dining hall set far from where they lived.
I pulled one bundle of 50,000-won bills from the torn plastic and flicked it like a deck of playing cards.
With a crisp sound, the notes slid one after another through my fingers.
“Let’s rebuild the orphanage first.”