Chapter 25. Top Member
Chapter 25. Top Member
“Let’s go! Beef.”
I opened my eyes to loud pounding. It was 5:30 p.m.
Bella was banging on my lodging door.
I opened it while fixing my messy hair with spit and telekinesis.
“Widower smell. Kang Chan dirty!”
The moment the door opened, Bella pinched her nose and frowned.
A smell?
I washed clean every day, so there was no way I’d stink…
And besides, my lodging was a sterile zone without a speck of dust.
“Already going?”
When I asked, Bella rubbed her stomach, whining that she was hungry and telling me to hurry.
She ate three bowls of jajangmyeon for lunch, and only a few hours later she was like this.
Dragging my triple-strap slippers, I went down to the first floor with Bella.
In the office, Cheolmin hyung was in a sharp suit watching the news, and on the sofa, Lauren was sitting and reading a paper newspaper.
People still read paper newspapers these days…
“Have you come out, little brother?”
Cheolmin hyung bowed to me.
“Yeah. Bella’s buying today, so don’t pay!”
“Miss Bella? What are you talking about? I should be the one treating everyone.”
“No. Today Bella can pay.”
“What are you saying? Why is Bella paying!”
Chanhyeok hyung tried to butt in from the counter, but when Cheolmin hyung glanced at him, he flinched and shut up.
“Oh my. Looks like you’re all going to eat. You’re all guests, right? I’m also a long-term guest in Room 104. I was just heading out to eat too—can I come along?”
Lauren, the redhead who’d been watching us, slipped in quickly.
“Come together. Today Bella show you Korean taste. Foreigner surprised taste.”
If the person paying allowed it, I had no reason to object.
The four of us went to the beef place we frequented.
And the moment I sat down, I ordered twelve servings of ribeye.
“Oh my, isn’t that too much?”
Lauren asked in shock, but I shook my head.
“We have a food fighter here, so we’ll need to order more later.”
“Right. Eat this and eat more!”
My words had a slightly timid streak of malice in them, but Bella didn’t care. She happily agreed and briskly mixed up a somaek.
The perfect golden ratio, even the bubbles rising when she struck it with chopsticks…
She made somaek better than Koreans.
“Kyaa! Good! You also eat. But name what! Where from?”
“I’m Lauren from the U.S. I do installation art, and this motel really helps my artistic sensibility. I’m staying a few days!”
Smiling brightly, Lauren emptied her somaek, said she wanted to try making it too, then mixed one and passed it around.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Choi Cheolmin, a businessman, long-term resident of Room 105. We’ll probably run into each other now and then, so please take care of me.”
The three long-term guests greeted each other, clinking glasses back and forth, having a good time.
But I focused on the ribeye.
Beef was a demon.
Even if you ate and ate until your belly stuck out, a few hours later when your stomach settled, you regretted not eating more. Today I wanted to eat more than Bella, so I grabbed three slices per chopstickful.
“Looks like you were really hungry, Master. You’re eating well today!”
Cheolmin hyung watched me with a pleased expression and drank somaek. Hearing that, Lauren’s eyes sparkled as she asked,
“Master? Aren’t you a motel employee? Are you teaching Cheolmin something?”
The question came in hard and fast, and Cheolmin froze, words stuck.
But Bella, chewing ribeye beside us, answered instead.
“Chan makes ssam good. Cheolmin learn ssam from Chan, then do gangster business!”
“..........”
I wondered if Bella was doing her Korean like that on purpose, or if she was roasting me with zero malice.
“Haha… well… the truth is, Kang Chan, my little brother here, has helped me many times when I was in trouble. And like Miss Bella said, he’s also a master of martial arts. I’ve received a lot of guidance from him, so the word ‘Master’ keeps slipping out. Little brother doesn’t like that word, but it’s hard to fix!”
“Oh my… really? You don’t look like it. That’s amazing!”
Lauren couldn’t believe it.
She’d seen Cheolmin’s skill when he swung the sword on the rooftop.
Those weren’t normal movements.
But this flimsy-looking, slick motel employee taught him combat?
Hard to believe.
After retrieving the rubber tub, she had already identified the two people sitting with her.
Choi Cheolmin. Age 34.
A criminal organization boss who crushed the Incheon Gang, a lower organization under the Chinese triads, and rose as a strongman in Seoul.
Bella Astarina. Age 23.
Russian nationality. Prior history unknown. Entered Korea suddenly before the North Korean nuclear incident. A person of concern.
There was nothing particularly unusual about Choi Cheolmin.
He was an underworld boss, but to Lauren, he fell into the “ordinary” category.
But Bella was truly strange.
Even using every U.S. intelligence organization, they couldn’t find her background.
Part of it was because Russia was her homeland, where U.S. operations were difficult—but not being able to find any past at all meant she wasn’t an ordinary person.
Russia was clearly hiding her identity on purpose.
If the unidentified flying object—the rubber tub—and the motel were connected, then this unknown Russian woman was the most suspicious.
The other motel employees’ personal data showed nothing particularly unusual.
Lauren decided to investigate Bella, and planned to stay at the motel until she figured out what Bella really was.
I felt like I was getting full.
But I stubbornly ordered three more servings of ribeye.
No matter how delicious beef was, there came a moment when you suddenly got sick of it.
Because it was so greasy.
When I felt the signal, I took a huge chopstickful of bibim noodles I’d ordered in advance and stuffed it into my mouth.
Crunchy kimchi as garnish cut the greasiness.
Then the beef started going down again.
For a neighborhood meat place, this one was pretty expensive.
One serving of palm-sized ribeye cost 50,000 won.
I’d never come here with my own money, but if someone else was buying, I wanted this place as my first pick.
How much had we eaten?
Twenty-one servings of ribeye. Was it because there were four of us?
We ordered more than usual. With everything added up, it looked like it would be 1.1 million won.
Way too expensive for one meal.
Whenever Cheolmin hyung paid, I felt bad and couldn’t eat to my heart’s content, but today I would. I was eating off someone who had 14.9 billion won deposited into their account today—this was nothing.
When even bibim noodles didn’t fully clear the greasiness, I drank another somaek and added three more servings.
The red-haired American also ate better than expected. As expected of the steak people—she didn’t even seem to feel the grease, and she didn’t use “cheats” like kimchi or bibim noodles.
The three of them, excluding me, seemed very interested in Cheolmin hyung’s martial arts, talking about it for a long time.
Especially Lauren, who’d joined us for the first time today—she seemed to have lots of questions.
Then suddenly Bella said something weird to me.
“Chan. Teach me martial arts too. I call you ‘little brother’ too!”
My mouth was full of food, so I couldn’t answer right away. I hurried to swallow and was about to refuse.
But Bella’s next words stopped me from answering with a simple refusal.
“I give money.”
I gulped down the food and looked at Bella.
“Do you know how much?”
“Yeah. I heard underling course price, Cheolmin course price. Do me higher level than that!”
The underling course was 100 million. The Cheolmin course was 1 billion.
If it was higher than that, how much should I take?
2 billion?
Would I have to pack internal energy bigger than Cheolmin’s?
But looking at Cheolmin with his tennis-ball-sized internal energy, if I packed more than that, it felt like his body would strain.
It might burst…
It was hard for the dantian to store internal energy larger than a tennis ball.
“I pay triple.”
“Okay. From now on, on my days off, you call me ‘Master.’”
Unlike the worries in my head, my mouth spit out a cool acceptance.
With 3 billion, even impossible things had to become possible.
“Give account number. I transfer now!”
Bella said, chewing meat, and I quickly gave her my bank account number.
Bella transferred 3 billion won to my account in six separate transfers.
When she opened her account, I’d heard beside her that her single-transfer limit was set to 500 million, and her daily transfer limit was 3 billion.
Maybe Bella had been thinking about 3 billion as internal energy instruction fees from that moment.
If I’d known this would happen, I should’ve whispered to her to make it 5 billion.
“From now on, you’re my disciple, Bella! Treat Cheolmin beside you as your senior brother, and the sixteen Isu Gang underlings who joined in the middle are all your senior brothers too. You’re the youngest junior—everyone will call you junior sister!”
I spoke sternly, but Bella snorted and said,
“Shut up. I paid most tuition, so I top. Tell everyone speak polite to me!”
Bella’s logic had a point.
Bella really was the top member.
“Ah… Miss Bella, you’re more impressive than I thought! Anyway, congratulations. Looks like we’ll be receiving the same guidance!”
Cheolmin said, looking shocked, but Bella seemed to have more to say to me.
“Two conditions, Kang Chan. If you can’t do, refund tuition!”
Refund?
There was no such word in my dictionary.
No matter what, I would meet the customer’s demands.
“Make me prettier than ssam-good. That first!”
Cheolmin and Lauren looked dumbfounded at Bella’s out-of-nowhere demand, but I nodded fiercely.
“No problem. Bella. From now on, you’ll become the most beautiful woman in the world!”
“Second: today meal bill, Kang Chan you pay. You earned money!”
At the second demand, I was speechless. I tried to think of a way out, but I couldn’t see a sharp solution.
Cheolmin hyung laughed and said he’d pay, but Bella threatened refund, so I had no choice but to pay the beef bill with tears in my eyes.
Above the register, the TV was on, and a breaking-news banner scrolled.
[Large-scale protests continue today. After the North Korean nuclear crisis, social unrest is increasingly···]
After the North Korean nuclear incident, the world was loud, but I wasn’t very interested, so I let it go in one ear and out the other.
But elsewhere, at this very moment, more specific conversations were happening.
At the FIU situation room, a red light came on.
“Suspicious transaction detected. A bulk transfer of 3 billion won.”
“Do we have the account holder and the recipient’s information?”
“The sender is a Russian tourist who received 15 billion won in Lotto winnings today. The recipient is an ordinary motel employee.”
“Any criminal indicators?”
“We’ll have to dispatch investigators to know. It could be a crime committed after learning a foreigner suddenly had a large sum.”
“Good. Investigate on-site. If you find signs of crime, coordinate immediately with the police. If it’s a normal gift, issue a gift tax notice.”
“Yes.”
To the world, South Korea was seen as geopolitically and militarily dangerous.
But the people living ordinary daily lives inside it snorted when they heard that.
In this day and age, war and nukes felt like stories in the clouds—unreal.
The nuclear missile arrived when that complacency was overflowing.
The shockwave from the North Korean nuclear incident changed an already turbulent Korea day by day.
The biggest change was because of the U.S. forces stationed in North Korea.
North Korea launched the nuke at South Korea, but the U.S. declared war on North Korea and took control as an occupying force.
No one spoke anymore about the former North Korean leader who’d been shattered so completely that not even a body could be found after the bunker buster.
The ones long split by the armistice line were stunned—was reunification really arriving this suddenly?
Then a large number of citizens held protests opposing reunification.
Their main argument was that if South Korea supported North Korea for reunification, South Korea would become poor.
Why should South Koreans sacrifice for North Korean reds? They seized the streets and protested daily.
At first, when North Korea’s total surrender made reunification seem imminent, the government praised itself, talking about great achievements—but when opposition to reunification grew more serious than expected, it quietly shifted direction and announced it would pursue gradual integration rather than full reunification.
But after a few days, the world realized all of that was South Korea’s own overreaction.
The U.S. declared that North Korea and South Korea were separate states, and that North Korea would become self-reliant under a new democratic government.
The U.S. also announced a massive investment plan to develop backward North Korea—building it into a logistics hub through roads, railways, and ports, and into a factory zone for the world using its abundant labor.
The armistice line would remain, and exchanges between North and South Korea would be banned due to strong demands from the North, the U.S. said.
Then the streets filled with reunification supporters alongside anti-American protests.
Why was America meddling in matters of our land and our people? They condemned a government that couldn’t say a word against American oppression and demanded the administration step down.
Compared to the previous anti-reunification protesters, this crowd had far more aggressive people.
But separately from that, the Korean economy got a green light.
Entrepreneurs quickly tried to build factories in the North to maximize corporate profit with cheap labor.
Even Northern figures who fiercely opposed South Korean government involvement welcomed investment from South Korean conglomerates.
The KOSPI, which had been cut in half, slowly recovered and began hitting all-time highs.
Real estate prices in northern Gyeonggi—cheaper than south of the Han River—soared day after day.
Chaos and prosperity.
In the middle of it, Seoul people were dividing into factions and fighting fiercely every day over what was right.