GGC
Park Changsik was supposedly the childhood friend of the Kim sisters, Nari and Nayeon.
The three of them had become Keepers at almost the same time, and their early days working together had been the predecessor to GGC.
That was why the shock hit everyone so much harder when someone like him tried to kill Kim Nayeon.
He was even the self-proclaimed admirer of Kim Nayeon—everyone knew it. When she had been hovering between life and death in the hospital this time, Park Changsik had been the one who never left her side for a single moment.
“Why would he do something like that?”
“According to that bastard, Nayeon was doing too well and it made him anxious.”
“What?”
I thought I must have misheard Garam.
But hearing it again didn’t change a thing.
“He figured that once Nayeon became an S-class Keeper, she’d drift away from him.”
“So his girlfriend… she was his girlfriend, right?”
“You’d have to say she was going to be. That bastard publicly confessed a few times, and Nayeon never really seemed to hate it. If she hadn’t grown so fast, they probably would’ve been dating already. The way I saw it, Nayeon was rising too quickly and the crew was doing too well, so they just kept putting it off because neither of them had the time.”
This was a little off-topic, but Garam’s voice had suddenly come alive. His analysis was detailed, too.
He didn’t seem to like Kim Nayeon that way… so was it just that he liked talking about romance?
A guy in his mid-thirties—an older brother type?—who normally felt heavy and serious suddenly turning bright and lively was a little strange.
“Then if he’d just sat still it would’ve worked out fine. What’s this about drifting apart?”
“If Nayeon got even stronger, it could’ve gone that way. Once she hit S-class she’d be busier than she is now, and the odds of them growing apart would go up. Her standards might rise too, and a bastard like him might not even register anymore. Of course, knowing the Nayeon I know, she still would’ve chosen that bastard. Kid’s got too much affection in her…”
Sure, A-class and B-class were close enough to rub shoulders, but the gap between S-class and B-class was massive.
It was the kind of thing that could make a man start panicking.
“But trying to kill her over that is a bit… does that even make sense?”
“He claims he never meant to kill her. Says he just wanted her badly hurt—crippled, or her growth as a Keeper stopped. Then he’d nurse her with absolute devotion so she’d depend on him for the rest of her life. But the mutation hit harder than planned, and Nayeon almost died.”
You only found out what a mutation would do after it actually happened.
Park Changsik had confessed as much, and Keira had told me the same thing.
“Isn’t he a psychopath? Is that love?”
“No. Absolutely not. That isn’t love. That bastard doesn’t even know what love is. No love means no trust, so he tries to own her or cling to her in twisted ways. Once he starts thinking of her as property, seeing her do better than him makes him anxious and disgusted.”
What a freak.
Good thing we caught him this time.
The crew members who’d been betrayed by someone who looked so normal would have a rough time of it, but with something like this it was better to take the hit early and move on.
Worst case, if Kim Nayeon and Park Changsik had already gotten married before this blew up? The wound would’ve been ten times deeper.
“So why did he confess? This is the same guy who was trying to shove Kim Nayeon into danger one more time right up to the end.”
“That I don’t know. Probably figured once he was caught there was nowhere left to run.”
True enough. Trying to weasel out of it there would’ve just earned him another taste of Kim Nayeon’s merciless fists.
I still remembered that last punch of hers.
Even watching from a distance had been enough to make my blood run cold.
No wonder Park Changsik fainted without even getting hit.
“What’s going to happen to Park Changsik?”
“Primary investigation’s done, so he’s locked up in the Association prison. He’ll stay there until the mastermind is caught, and once that happens he’ll be judged according to the law. Attempted murder plus the aggravated penalties for crimes involving Keepers and Gates… he might even get the death penalty.”
Garam’s expression was dark.
The betrayal had to cut deep, but he couldn’t exactly be happy about someone he knew dying either.
Keepers received aggravated punishment whenever there was evidence they’d used their abilities.
It wasn’t about “great power comes with great responsibility” or anything noble like that.
Keepers got all kinds of exemptions, so the message was simply: follow the law that much more carefully.
Without penalties this severe, it could spark social unrest too.
The image of Keepers remaining under government control had become one of the key pillars holding society together.
“Any news on the mastermind?”
“Unfortunately, none.”
This case had a mastermind.
The person who had handed Park Changsik the paper with the magic circle drawn on it—the scroll.
Park Changsik said he’d paid a fortune for that scroll. He’d been told it would make a monster stronger.
The mastermind behind the earlier goblin incident was presumed to be the same person.
There must have been someone like Park Changsik there too, buying a scroll from the mastermind.
We hadn’t managed to grab the mastermind’s tail.
Every contact Park Changsik gave us had been useless.
Somehow the mastermind had gotten wind of it, and their response had been swift and perfect.
“This is bad. Victims are probably still turning up somewhere right now.”
“Still, it’s only been a day. The Association will make a move. We’ll hear good news soon enough.”
“You seem to trust the Association a lot. I’m still a novice Keeper, so the criminal making those scrolls scares me more.”
“Maybe they’re someone who uses magic like you, Jungmin. It’s definitely an unknown technique. But you can’t ignore the Association. They’ve got real depth. They didn’t rule for thirty years for nothing.”
Hearing it put that way, he had a point.
Nearly every Keeper in Korea was registered with the Association.
In the Great Keeper Era, saying the Association was the entirety of Korea’s combat power wasn’t an exaggeration.
They had to have some kind of plan.
Even if the opponent used magic.
It’s a little crude, but this is a scroll.
That was the conclusion Keira had reached about the paper found on Park Changsik.
A scroll was a piece of paper that let anyone cast magic.
Naturally, mages made them.
You can’t automatically call them a mage, though. There are awakened abilities related to scrolls too.
In Keira’s world, Archenia, there were people who had awakened abilities like that.
In Archenia it didn’t matter much either way—plenty of people could mass-produce scrolls without that kind of ability.
Mage or not, the Association still had to fight someone who used magic.
All I could do was hope they handled it well.
Otherwise Soyeon wouldn’t be able to enter any Gates.
After we caught Park Changsik, I had advised Soyeon not to go into any Gates.
Times like these were so unsettled that anything could happen.
“I hope the Association shows that depth of theirs soon. You know Soyeon, right? In a situation like this she’s too scared to even set foot in a Gate.”
“Without a crew it would definitely be hard. But does this Soyeon know everything about what happened?”
“She doesn’t know about our crew’s incident, but she was there for the goblin one. I told her to be careful. That the anomalies happening inside Gates these days aren’t natural disasters—they’re man-made.”
“Then she must know you’re a mage, Jungmin.”
“Yeah. She’s one of the few people who know my secret.”
Soyeon even knew that Keira was from another world.
No one else knew that yet.
In the GGC crew, Keira was still just a Keeper of unknown origin.
“If she’s someone like that, she’d be welcome to work with our crew.”
It was Kim Nari.
As refreshingly straightforward as ever, she strode over with long steps and sat down in front of me, Keira, and Garam.
We had been waiting in the crew house conference room because she’d said she had something to tell us.
“Sorry for calling you here and then being late. There was a lot to handle.”
“It’s fine. I understand.”
Park Changsik had been a founding member.
When someone like that became a criminal, of course she’d be busy.
“And Nayeon as well…”
“It’s fine. I understand.”
According to Garam, Kim Nayeon was deeply wounded right now.
She didn’t want to see anyone.
I got it.
In a way, it was betrayal from the person she had trusted most.
“I keep having to ask for understanding from the people who saved us. I’m truly sorry.”
Kim Nari bowed deeply at the waist.
I was starting to feel more familiar with the top of her head than her face.
“Please raise your head. I understand how you feel, Leader. I’ll take all the forgiveness and gratitude you want to give.”
“Thank you, truly. I don’t know how I can ever repay this debt…”
Kim Nari straightened up again.
The top of her head might have become familiar, but this look suited her far better.
That intelligent, elegant posture and smile.
She carried the seasoned air of a proper leader.
For the record, using the word “seasoned” for her didn’t feel strange at all.
She was older than me, after all.
Twenty-seven.
“Please make the first offer.”
I said it half-seriously, half as a joke.
Anyone could see Keira was the real MVP of this whole incident, but everyone thought it was me.
That worked out perfectly.
If I’d actually done all of it myself, I would’ve gotten cocky and started refusing things out of fake humility.
But right now I had to collect Keira’s reward.
I was going to take everything I could get. That was what a reward was for.
“I’ll skip the small stuff and get to the important part. I’ll give you ten percent of our crew’s shares.”
“What?”
Even me, who’d steeled myself for this, was a little stunned by the scale of the compensation.
GGC was a massive crew, practically on the level of a major corporation.
Ten percent of the crew’s shares meant ten percent of the crew’s total profits—including the revenue from Kim Nari’s Gate.
Kim Nari’s Gate was the place expected to produce a drug that could conquer dementia.
If that actually happened, the money earned from the Gate alone would easily surpass trillions of won a year.
Ten percent of that.
Easily past a hundred billion.
With that much, couldn’t I just quit being a Keeper and live off it for the rest of my life?
“No need to be so surprised. It was the share originally planned for Park Changsik. It’s a real relief we hadn’t gone through the official paperwork yet.”
“Still… are you sure you can just decide that?”
“It’s mine anyway, so it’s fine.”
It’s mine anyway.
She said it so coolly it looked incredibly cool.
Of course it was.
The Gate owner was Kim Nari, and she was basically the crew itself.
Damn it, I wanted to be a crew leader too.
If only I had a Gate!
“Of course I’m only giving you the profits. No voting rights or anything like that.”
“Of course. That makes sense.”
“Still, I hope you understand how seriously I take this. Thank you, truly, for saving my sister.”
Kim Nari bowed at the waist again.
This time it wasn’t the top of her head that caught my eye, but her back and waist.
Under that blouse there had to be some magnificent erector spinae.
Squeeze.
Did she know what I was thinking?
Keira pressed down firmly on my foot.
I flinched and looked at her. The eyes under her hood were sharp.
What the… how did she actually know? Women’s intuition, huh.
“I understand your intentions clearly, Leader. That’s enough—please stand up.”
“Understood. Are you satisfied with the compensation?”
“Of course. I don’t think I could be more satisfied. After receiving this much, I’ll make sure to repay the crew properly.”
“I trust you.”
I held out my hand, and Kim Nari took it with an enchanting smile.
Her soft, long fingers wrapped around mine.
Looking at the top of her head was nice, but I liked this handshake too.
Squeeze, squeeze.
And I also liked Keira’s mysterious little foot-squeezes, even if I had no idea how she kept knowing.