Chapter 26. Long-Term Guests Busy with Their Real Jobs
Chapter 26. Long-Term Guests Busy with Their Real Jobs
“Hey, you! Don’t move!”
One of the sixteen original Isu Gang members.
He used to be the youngest until recently, but now Jaehun was a proper mid-level boss. Drunk on the music, he spotted a young man trying to slip something suspicious into a female customer’s drink while she was off guard, and he shouted.
The young man went pale and tried to run the moment Jaehun yelled, but the big bodies swarming in from all sides pinned him down.
“Put this bastard in the Room of Truth too!”
Jaehun stepped outside the club to smoke a cigarette and ease his frustration.
Already the third time today.
“Heaven,” a club in Itaewon.
A venue Isu Gang managed directly.
But lately, almost every day, guys like that showed up—caught messing around with drugs.
As Heaven’s general manager, Jaehun couldn’t let it slide.
Boss Cheolmin hyung had been running all over Seoul lately, trying to catch the ones flooding the city with drugs.
Even if it weren’t the boss’s policy, Jaehun couldn’t tolerate drugs either.
If an incident blew up and the police were dispatched, the best-case outcome was a business suspension; if they were unlucky, permanent closure.
And it wouldn’t just be the venue. If they got branded a drug organization, Isu Gang could be wiped out overnight.
This was about their rice bowl.
But the biggest problem was that, like this, they couldn’t solve it at the root.
It was a tightly compartmentalized cell structure, so it was damn near impossible to grab the upper line.
Even that bastard in the Room of Truth right now, spilling everything he knew, probably didn’t know anything—he likely dealt with the upper line only through burner phones and lockers.
“Again?”
“Yes. This time it’s Itaewon.”
Cheolmin frowned.
“Same thing—only the tail, right?”
“Yes. We roughed him up a bit and got him to talk, but he says he only received supply in a cell format and distributed it. Still, the volume is big. With that amount, you could flood an entire city for over a month.”
“China again, I guess?”
“When he first got the goods, they didn’t even take payment. They approached first, and they even paid a deposit. Same method as when the Incheon Gang expanded back then.”
Cheolmin’s head hurt.
They weren’t trying to make money off drug sales as much as they were trying to mass-produce addicts.
They were handing out drugs for free, tricking people into thinking it was a beverage or alcohol, and turning ordinary civilians into addicts.
It felt like China was invading Korea with drugs as a weapon.
Why take revenge for the Opium Wars out on the wrong target?
A devil’s drug.
As far as Cheolmin knew, there were no old drug addicts.
Because they all died before they got old.
On the rare occasions there was an old addict, it was either someone who started drugs late in life, or someone who’d had a long break from using because they spent years in prison.
Cheolmin’s own life wasn’t exactly upright, but drugs—those, he wouldn’t tolerate.
“Any news from our rookies who are undercover in the clubs?”
“I was about to report. One of the guys out in Hongdae got a nibble. Someone DM’d him offering to supply.”
“Yeah? Then I should go myself.”
“You, hyungnim? Three out of the sixteen have already been taken out.”
After receiving guidance from Master and successfully forming a core, the sixteen former Isu Gang members became shockingly strong. And lately, they’d been calling themselves “Juni” and whatever else—cringey names they said they took from a popular comic.
“No. I have a bad feeling. I’m uneasy—feels like they’re not normal guys.”
Cheolmin opened the office cabinet and took out a sword.
He’d custom-ordered it from a craftsman—on the outside it looked like a wooden sword, but when drawn, a sharp blade was hidden inside: a real sword.
Even if he ran into another monster like before, he wasn’t afraid anymore.
Even when he couldn’t circulate energy, he’d crushed a monster’s head. But now, he was running the Small Heavenly Circuit hundreds of times a day, and each time he felt his strength grow stronger.
If he met a monster now with this sword in hand, he was confident he could turn dozens of them into a handful of ash.
Gwanghwamun Square.
In front of the statue of King Sejong.
Lauren, wearing sunglasses, was disguised as an ordinary tourist.
No matter where she looked, foreigners everywhere.
Most of the people who looked East Asian were Chinese or Japanese tourists.
Tourism interest in Korea wasn’t fading despite the nuclear threat—if anything, it was flaring up.
Younger generations were captivated by K-culture and wanted to come, and middle-aged travelers were coming too, calling it a fantastic country where thrill and romance coexisted—blooming with dazzling culture right in the middle of nuclear danger.
But today, Gwanghwamun Square carried a tension different from usual.
Koreans—hard to find here normally—began to trickle in, then quickly swelled until the square was packed.
Protesters.
They showed up holding Taegeukgi flags, U.S. flags, even North Korean flags.
Not one faction, but multiple groups with different claims gathered in the heart of Gwanghwamun. Armed riot police quickly massed on the surrounding roads.
The pro-unification side—chanting anti-American slogans, demanding the withdrawal of U.S. troops in Korea, and calling for North–South reunification—set up a stage with massive speakers closer to Gwanghwamun and blasted protest music.
The anti-unification camp—chanting opposition to reunification and calling for U.S.–Korea cooperation—took positions toward City Hall, set up their own stage, and played military songs.
Before the North Korean nuclear incident, South Korea’s representative social divide had been progressive versus conservative. Now it had split into pro-unification and anti-unification forces. People who once held different political views were regrouping and merging into new coalitions.
The government still couldn’t present a clear stance on reunification and North Korea.
One day they talked about fulfilling the nation’s long-held wish; the next day they talked about collecting, by all means, the blood price of the soldiers sacrificed by North Korea.
Lauren slowly moved toward the pro-unification side.
According to intel from the CIA, Chinese agents were running an operation today: they planned to push the pro-unification side into a violent demonstration.
They were planning to threaten a pitiful family man drowning in loan shark debt and use him as a “self-immolation martyr.”
They would broadcast the scene nationwide live—him burning while shouting anti-American reunification slogans—aiming to stir the public’s emotions. With that, they planned for the pro-unification side to seize momentum in the current deadlock, and to pressure the South Korean government that couldn’t take a clear position.
“Ridiculous. If reunification actually happened, the ones who’d panic the most would be them…”
Lauren snorted after hearing the plan.
In reality, the side most wary of Korean Peninsula reunification used to be Japan, but now it was China.
So watching them run this kind of deception was laughable.
But separately from that, China’s operation today had a high chance of succeeding. As an ethnically homogeneous nation with strong pride in identity, South Koreans were likely to react emotionally if they felt foreign powers were meddling in the peninsula’s affairs.
If that happened, anti-American sentiment would rise nationwide.
As a CIA agent, Lauren had to stop that today.
She stood twenty meters from the intended victim, acting like a tourist watching the protesters with fascination.
She kept taking photos like she found the scene amazing, but in truth, the camera attached to her headband was zoomed in and filming the victim.
In the man’s eyes—who was supposed to douse himself in gasoline and burn—there was grim resolve and a quiet fear.
Lauren sent a message to the undercover agents around her with the target’s photo.
[Target preparing. Prepare fire-suppression foam.]
The regular agents didn’t know Lauren, but Lauren knew them.
They moved in around the intended victim, holding special fire-suppression foam hidden under their clothes.
A man with an unfriendly face leaned in and muttered something into the victim’s ear, then handed him a lighter and a gasoline can.
Lauren filmed all of it.
The victim’s mouth trembled as he took the lighter and the gasoline can and climbed onto the pro-unification stage. The people on stage must have been notified in advance—they didn’t stop him, and they handed him a mic.
“Why does America get to tell our country what to do! My wish is for our country to become a sovereign nation with sovereignty!”
In a shaking voice, the man screamed into the mic, lifted the gasoline can, splashed it over his entire body, and flicked the lighter.
Cameras all around trained on him.
“Yankee go home! Give us back sovereignty!”
Then he set himself on fire—only to be instantly covered by special fire-suppression foam sprayed by U.S. agents waiting on all sides.
The white suppressant ballooned on contact with air and engulfed him. The flames couldn’t spread and went out.
He suffered burns only on the hand and arm holding the lighter.
Instead, the gasoline can on the stage caught fire, briefly scorching the platform—then it, too, was extinguished by more foam.
Screams erupted. An ambulance arrived and transported the would-be self-immolator.
But that ambulance didn’t go to a hospital. It raced to the U.S. Forces Korea base.
And a few hours later—
Korean media splashed headlines about the noble self-immolation attempt protesting America’s violation of sovereignty. YouTube and short-form SNS flooded with thousands of on-scene videos.
In them, a man shouted “Yankee go home. Give us back sovereignty,” and set himself on fire.
After that, there was a flood of cookie-cutter videos saying it was dangerous but he wasn’t critically injured, his life wasn’t in danger, and they wished him a speedy recovery.
But at the same time, foreign media spread reports about extremist protesters who threatened a poor family man with usurious loan shark debt and tried to stage a fake self-immolation. On the front page photos, there was a man threatening the terrified victim while handing him a lighter and a gasoline can. Even the conversation—telling him not to worry about his family and to finish the job safely—was captured vividly.
After successfully completing the Gwanghwamun operation, Lauren checked her next directive.
Next directive: infiltrate a Hongdae club.
Gather intel on the drug organization distributing narcotics to destabilize Korean society.
She had a bit of time, so Lauren stopped by the motel and changed into an outfit suitable for entering a club.
At the counter, Kang Chan was reading a wuxia novel lazily, wearing a serious expression.
Lauren thought it was absurd that a pathetic guy like that could be a master of martial arts, and she headed to Hongdae.
Inside the club, it was dark. Ear-splitting music filled the space.
As a trained agent, Lauren only had to sweep the room once to identify the target.
Late twenties. Solid build.
A gold necklace, and his exposed forearms were covered in irezumi tattoos.
He looked uninterested in the music, sitting at a table with a beer bottle, staring at his phone.
To Lauren, it was obvious he wasn’t here to party—he had a purpose.
Then an unexpected person caught Lauren’s eye.
Choi Cheolmin.
He was standing by the smoking room near the entrance.
He didn’t seem to have noticed Lauren—he just stood there alone, expressionless.
But to Lauren’s seasoned eye, it was clear he was waiting for something.
He acted indifferent, but Cheolmin was definitely keeping the lockers near the entrance in his awareness.
Was Choi Cheolmin part of the drug distribution route?
U.S. intel said he was a gangster, but that he was pivoting toward legal business…
Was it a cover?
So Cheolmin wouldn’t notice her, Lauren turned her body halfway at an angle, pretending to dance while observing both Cheolmin and the necklace guy.
Then she spotted a man with his cap pulled low placing a small handbag into a locker near the entrance.
Cheolmin kept pretending not to care, watching the movement. Then two men followed the cap guy out.
A little later, the tattooed necklace guy—who’d been sitting alone—bowed to Cheolmin, showed him something on his phone, then went to the locker and took out the item the cap guy had put in. He handed it to Cheolmin.
Without drawing Cheolmin’s attention, Lauren lowered her head and left the club, then tailed the cap guy.