Chapter 10. I’ll Pay You More Than Enough
Chapter 10. I’ll Pay You More Than Enough
I woke to the alarm.
6 p.m.
I’d slept hard, and I felt refreshed.
When I checked my phone, I had a message.
[Benefactor! I handled the matter with the young lady in Room 102. The employee who didn’t come in today also came to work without issues and is on shift.]
Wow…
He really was capable.
Fluent in Russian, and he even managed to change Chanhyeok hyung’s mind when he looked absolutely certain to quit….
[If you’re having dinner, let’s go out and eat together. It’ll be on me.]
The timestamp said it came five minutes ago. I replied.
[Yes. I just woke up. I’ll come down.]
When he said he’d “treat,” that meant he was paying, right?
If someone wants to buy me a meal, I never refuse.
I went down to the first floor in sweatpants and slippers. At the counter, the manager and Chanhyeok hyung were standing straight while working, and inside the office, the guest from Room 105 and the Russian guest from Room 102 were sitting and talking intensely while looking at something.
“Uh… you’re up, Chani. Going to eat?”
The manager looked at me and spoke with an awkward expression.
Chanhyeok hyung’s face was pale, and he looked exhausted.
“Yes. I’ll go eat and come back. Hi, Chanhyeok hyung!”
I greeted him because I was glad to see him.
But he only gave a small nod and kept looking at the counter screen.
At a glance, since it was a weekday, there were a lot of empty rooms. Honestly, refusing to list on the apps felt like a huge mistake by the owner….
These days, the world changes day by day. It made no sense to go against the times just because he thought ad fees and commissions were “a waste.”
And it wasn’t just the owner’s problem.
Counter staff lived on bonuses as much as base pay, so the better the business, the higher our income.
“You’re out? How about beef?”
The guest from Room 105 looked happy to see me and personally opened the front door for me.
Normally, I should be the one opening doors for guests… but then again, I was off today, so did it matter?
And the Room 102 guest followed us out too.
Was she eating with us?
The guest from Room 105 said nothing as the Russian woman stepped forward to join like it was obvious.
Then it wasn’t my place to care either.
The person paying didn’t mind.
“I know this area pretty well. The territory we manage isn’t far. That barbecue place on the corner over there is the best.”
Yesterday his expression was blank or deeply scowling, but when he spoke gently like this, the guest from Room 105 looked almost like a good person.
People really should smile all the time.
It looked better like this.
The three of us went into the barbecue place and ordered food.
Five servings of premium ribeye.
As soon as the server cut the meat, the woman from Room 102 kept snatching pieces and popping them into her mouth.
She kept shoveling down rice and soybean paste stew too, babbling “sva-sva” nonstop.
“She says it’s incredibly delicious. She’s never had barbecue like this before. She also says she’s very happy she came to Korea.”
Because of her intonation and pronunciation, it sounded like she was cursing, but hearing the translation made me feel good too.
When you watch YouTube Shorts, there are tons of stories about foreigners traveling to Korea and hitting food spots—this felt like seeing that in person.
“You eat really well. You could be a mukbang YouTuber.”
I said it while watching her, because it looked like she ate four out of the five servings by herself and still didn’t look satisfied.
The man in Room 105 interpreted my words to her. She listened seriously for a while, then spoke to me.
“Delicious. Thank you. I am Bella. Call me Bella.”
Yesterday she couldn’t speak any Korean, but she’d already picked up a few phrases.
Come to think of it, I’d thought about learning basic Russian conversation, but I never actually did it.
But I only wanted to learn Russian because of this guest—and if she learned Korean this fast, did I even need to learn Russian?
“I’m Kang Chan. Nice to meet you.”
“I’m Cheolmin. Choi Cheolmin. Please call me comfortably.”
I introduced myself to the guest in Room 102 who said she was Bella.
The restaurant worker who kept grilling and serving the beef looked at the unbalanced trio—a model-like foreign woman in a dress that showed off her chest, a gangster in a suit, and a dopey-looking guy in sweats—and wondered what we even were.
We were even introducing ourselves like we’d just met today.
Guildmates from a game or something?
“Benefactor… may I ask you a favor? I’ll pay you more than enough.”
After we’d eaten a bit, Cheolmin said that.
“You already heard the rough outline of my situation yesterday. I’m someone who has to take revenge on the Incheon faction. My younger brothers—more precious than my own blood—were killed by them. I have to retrieve at least their bodies, and I have to take the enemy boss’s head.”
Cheolmin continued after downing a shot of soju we’d ordered mid-meal.
Beside him, Bella stared at the soju, then poured herself a glass and drank too.
She’d already eaten what looked like ten servings by herself, but her stomach didn’t stick out at all.
No matter how you looked at it, she was top-tier mukbang YouTuber physique.
“I know you’re someone with great power. That’s why I’m shamelessly asking you for something difficult. If you help me recover my brothers’ bodies, I’ll be grateful. I’ll handle taking the enemy commander’s head myself.”
Watching Cheolmin speak gravely and drink another shot, I asked carefully.
“Um… when you say you’ll pay me…”
I was willing to help a thankful customer who was buying me expensive beef without expecting anything back, but he brought up payment first.
“We haven’t properly established ourselves yet, so an enormous sum is hard. But about 500 million won is possible. If you help me, I’ll give it to you.”
“Five… five hundred million won.”
That was a huge amount.
I’d saved 3 million won every month for five years, and that was 180 million.
On top of that, the blind money I picked up a few days ago—1.4 billion.
If I added another 500 million, that was 2 billion won.
I was an ambitious man. I wanted to save up and become the owner of a business like the motel I worked at before I turned forty.
If big money kept rolling in like it had these past few days, I might reach that ambition fast.
“Okay! Understood, Customer Choi Cheolmin! Whatever help you need, I’ll give it to you, so don’t worry.”
Before I fell asleep earlier, I’d searched terms like Eui-gi Sang-in and empty-hand object retrieval.
Murim novel jargon—moving objects with internal energy.
This guest was misunderstanding my identity as some kind of martial arts master.
Perfect.
Even if telekinesis gets exposed, I could insist it was “martial arts.”
I felt genuinely grateful to this guest, Choi Cheolmin, for giving me such a good excuse.
“Please call me comfortably. Just call me Cheolmin, or if you’re uncomfortable because of age, call me Cheolmin hyung… Want a drink?”
Cheolmin wanted to close the distance with Kang Chan. If possible, he even wanted to learn martial arts from this master.
“No. I don’t really like soju. It’s just bitter. I’ll have a beer.”
I ordered a pricier beer, proving I wasn’t drinking Cass or Terra.
Ah… cold.
I usually spent my off-days alone, but hanging out with people like this wasn’t bad.
The beer cooled my esophagus on the way down, passed through my stomach, and headed for my intestines. Inside, I broke down the alcohol and expelled it through my pores.
Telekinesis was a skill you could apply in endless ways if you used your imagination.
Looking at Bella beside me, she was pouring soju into a glass and chugging it down.
Vodka people, as expected.
“Then shall we go? If it’s the Incheon faction, do we go to Incheon?”
Once it seemed like we’d mostly finished eating, I said it.
“Huh? Right now?”
Cheolmin hesitated.
“You said you have to find your brothers’ bodies. Today’s my off-day, so let’s go!”
“Uh… but I should at least prepare…”
“Come on. It’s fine. Since it came up, let’s go now!”
I stood up, leaving Bella behind as she mixed rice into the soybean paste stew pot and scraped it clean.
Cheolmin stood too.
Cheolmin, the Room 105 guest who’d been hesitating, seemed to steel himself. He paid the bill and called a taxi.
Bella said she’d go sightseeing and shopping downtown, then return to the motel.
We took a taxi to Incheon Chinatown.
In the taxi, Cheolmin kept texting and calling his men.
From what I caught, he was ordering them to wait nearby and saying he’d summon them.
“Why tell them to wait? Just go in together.”
I asked because I didn’t get it.
“Twelve of our members died this time. Sixteen brothers are left. If even one more gets hurt, I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself.”
Cheolmin spoke gloomily.
This was one way I differed from normal people.
I tried to empathize, but I didn’t know how.
Thinking rationally, ordinary people without an ability like mine were probably acting with the expectation of death from this point on.
If I didn’t have telekinesis, I probably wouldn’t step into something this dangerous even for 500 million won.
But did it warrant being that gloomy?
I felt like I understood, and yet I didn’t.
The taxi dropped us in front of a restaurant near Chinatown.
A shabby-looking two-story building used by itself.
Cheolmin and I walked in without hesitation.
Proving they recognized Cheolmin, men in their twenties instantly surrounded us.
The restaurant staff quickly slipped away, leaving only the Incheon faction and us.
Did they know we were coming?
“Oh, how nice. I was just gathering the boys to come find you, and you walk in on your own!”
“Where did you take my brothers?!”
A man with a nose piercing swaggered in front of us. Cheolmin gritted his teeth and spoke.
“Take them? Who? We’re not the kind of people who kidnap. Why bother keeping them alive and taking them? Just turn them into meat and cut out only the parts we need!”
Analyzing what he said, it was brutal.
Cheolmin’s fear that his brothers were already dead seemed true.
Looking at them now, these guys were evil in society.
Fighting evil people was the thinking of good, normal people…
I picked up a broom that was sitting by the restaurant entrance.
I didn’t actually need it, but I needed people to think I was a martial arts master.
Without saying anything, I swung the broom at the gangsters surrounding us.
To others, it probably didn’t look powerful at all, but my real weapon wasn’t the broom.
It was telekinesis.
Everyone the broom touched had their bones crushed.
A few of them pulled out sashimi knives and swung at me, but inside my field, they couldn’t lay a hand on my body.
By a hair’s breadth, the blades missed me, and my broom strikes made their bones burst apart.
Not breaking—bursting, crumbling into powder—so a cast wouldn’t fix it.
With just casual, light swings of the broom, the men dropped and couldn’t move.
They were the kind of tough bastards who gritted through flesh being torn and cut, so it was hard to believe they couldn’t get up from such “light” attacks.
Jinho, the Incheon boss, clenched his teeth and swung a sashimi knife at the man in sweats and slippers.
But the man dodged his attacks by the width of a sheet of paper, and only attacked his subordinates.
In an instant, thirteen of his men were rolling on the floor, and not one of them could stand back up.