Chapter 37. Chivalrous Deeds 1
Chapter 37. Chivalrous Deeds 1
The man in the tracksuit carried Seorin’s suitcase and opened the door to Room 103.
He smoothly inserted the room key into the keytag and introduced the room.
A fireplace-shaped light fixture and an 80-inch large TV.
A spacious room with a mini fridge and a reception set.
At this level, it was better equipped than a business hotel.
The bed looked cheap, but for staying a few days, it was better than expected.
“Is the guest in Room 105 in their room right now?”
Cha Seorin asked the motel employee as she looked around.
“The guest in Room 105 went out this morning. He said it’ll be hard for him to return today, so he’ll probably be back tomorrow. Please rest comfortably, and if you need anything, press 0 on the room phone and it’ll connect you to the counter.”
“Thank you. This is a tip.”
Seorin took out a 10,000-won bill from her wallet and handed it to the tracksuit man.
“Thank you.”
The employee hurried forward, bent at a perfect ninety degrees, and accepted the money.
The instant her fingertips touched him, Seorin sent blood energy into his body.
Blood energy climbed from the fingertips and raced toward the heart to stop it—
Huh?
Seorin sensed something wrong.
The blood energy she injected vanished somewhere, like a pebble dropped into an endless sea.
“Please rest comfortably.”
The tracksuit man smiled and moved to leave.
“Wait. I didn’t tip enough. I’ll give you a bit more.”
Seorin took out a 50,000-won bill and handed it over.
The employee again came in quickly, bowed, and accepted it.
She injected blood energy again.
This time, she forced in everything she could squeeze out, like detonating it inside his body.
But again, the massive blood energy disappeared, and the man slipped the 50,000-won bill into his pocket, gave a light nod, and started to leave.
Her power—enough to burst dozens of humans—had vanished without a trace.
Seorin instantly realized this tracksuit man was not ordinary.
She opened her suitcase and drew the sword inside.
Cha Seorin’s weapon as a disciplinary knight for over four hundred years.
Times had changed, and these days even the blood clan preferred guns over blades, but that applied to rookies—those newly born into the blood clan.
For blood clan members over a hundred years old, firearms were useless.
The man who was about to leave after taking the 50,000-won bill stopped when Seorin opened her bag and pulled something out.
Seorin drew the sword and swung straight for his throat.
An extremely fast cut.
But the tracksuit man simply dipped his body and avoided it.
When the attack failed, she turned and delivered three more slashes.
A blade rising from the waist, crashing down, then cutting horizontally—these weren’t random swings, but the essence of swordsmanship Seorin had mastered over long centuries.
Yet the man evaded them with only light movements, never losing his smile.
“Ah… ma’am, is there perhaps something you’re unhappy about?”
Seorin didn’t answer.
She launched nine more attacks.
In the span of a single breath, nine sword strikes filled Room 103 with crimson sword-light.
But none of her attacks touched him.
Her final strike would have cut the massive TV mounted on the wall along its trajectory.
The man lightly pushed and redirected her wrist, preventing the sword from slicing the TV.
“Then please rest comfortably. If there’s anything inconvenient, call for me!”
At the entryway, he gave a small nod, opened the door, and left.
Seorin stood there, sword in hand, stunned by what had just happened.
Four hundred thirty-two years.
She had faced countless monsters and powerful enemies, but she had never met anyone like this.
No one had ever handled her as if she were a child.
Blood energy didn’t work at all, and four hundred years of swordsmanship couldn’t even cut his collar.
He might be stronger than the Grand Elder.
Cha Seorin realized she’d made a grave miscalculation.
The tracksuit man wasn’t simply dangerous.
He was an untouchable monster.
Midnight.
The cleaning team was putting away the cleaning carts and getting ready to clock out.
The female cleaning team that had slacked off all day had already gone up to the dorms.
The Isu Gang juniors, who had worked hard all day, were organizing the carts while grinning like something good had happened.
Even though another team’s laziness gave them more work, they didn’t complain—if anything, they looked happy.
Scary faces, but excellent character.
Rooms 104 and 105 were still empty.
Cheolmin hyung and Lauren still hadn’t returned.
Until a moment ago, Bella had been in the office watching dramas on her phone, going “Meee~~~ meee~~~,” and only now had she finally gone back to Room 102.
The door to Room 103 opened, and the female guest walked out into the hallway.
She seemed to know Cheolmin hyung—some acquaintance.
But she must have had a lot of complaints about the room earlier.
You could tell from the way she’d suddenly lashed out with violence, like other troublesome guests.
A guest who politely tips and then suddenly attacks is a new type, but motels get all kinds, so I let it go.
I’d already given up on trying to understand guests.
The woman from Room 103 came to the counter and silently stared at me.
“Do you need anything?”
I asked politely, but she kept staring and then asked,
“Is that coffee?”
“Huh? Ah—this? Yes, it’s mix coffee. Would you like a cup?”
She stared at the cup in my hand for a long time, then asked for one.
This woman’s reactions were too slow.
What was she thinking?
I almost asked why she’d gotten angry earlier, but stopped.
When guests get violent, it’s usually because of things I can’t fix.
I held out a cup of mix coffee. She didn’t drink it—she just held it in both hands and looked at me.
What’s with her?
“Coffee tastes best when it’s hot, ma’am. Once it cools, it’s bad!”
“I only asked for it because I wanted to smell it. I can’t drink it.”
“Huh? You can’t drink it? Why?”
“I have a body that can’t consume food. I’ve seen people drink coffee in movies and dramas, so I only wanted to smell it.”
I felt skeptical, so I swept her body with telekinesis—from esophagus to stomach, intestines, and excretory organs.
And just as she said, there wasn’t a trace of food inside her digestive tract.
Is she even human?
I checked further. Her heart was enlarged, and the blood vessels throughout her body were more developed than normal. The vessels leading into her brain were dozens of times denser than a regular person’s.
Ah. Same species as that monster I saw before.
I’d killed a few monsters like her in the past.
But right now, she was a guest.
Not just any guest—a long-term guest.
I always do my best to accommodate guests.
She seemed like the vampire type—meaning she could probably only consume blood.
But… I thought I could make it work.
I told her,
“Do you want to try a sip?”
She stared at me in silence, then swallowed a sip of coffee.
As it went down her esophagus, her body rejected everything but blood, so it rushed down fast—like oil flowing through a plastic tube.
I adjusted the flow to a normal human speed and atomized the coffee, forcing it through tiny gaps in the hardened walls of her digestive organs so it could be absorbed.
She must have felt something strange, because she swallowed another sip.
This time, I slowly had the coffee absorb into her body starting from her mouth. I let her taste buds absorb it too—so she could taste it.
What I’d just done wasn’t really based on medical books I’d read.
I simply copied the normal process of eating and shoved it into a body that refused food.
It wasn’t that hard.
When the coffee absorbed, the guest in Room 103 looked shocked. Then she drained the rest of the hot cup in one gulp.
Her face—caught between amazement and joy—turned toward me.
Her looks were the best I’d ever seen.
Bella, who only made goat noises, couldn’t compete at all.
“Wouldn’t it be better if you stayed back, Lauren?”
In front of a building in Gangnam, Cheolmin said to Lauren.
Lauren nodded, pinned a small device to the lapel of Cheolmin’s suit and shirt collar, and spoke.
“It’s a tracker, plus video and audio recording. The CIA will back it up in real time. Unless it’s an especially dangerous situation, I won’t step in, but if you need help, press the button on this device. And take this too. You know how to use it, right?”
Lauren handed Cheolmin a pistol and two magazines.
They were standing in front of Chairman Yang’s building—one of the forces dividing Gangnam’s underworld into three.
Chairman Yang was a Gangnam native who had built his organization through usurious private lending and contract violence.
Strictly speaking, Seoul’s underworld meant Gangnam’s underworld.
Gangnam was Seoul.
The scale of every deal here surpassed the combined scale of organizations nationwide.
The ruler of Gangnam was the ruler of Korea.
Currently, three organizations opposed each other in balance, and Chairman Yang was a legendary gangster who had built power since the 1970s.
Cheolmin planned to meet Chairman Yang today and propose an alliance.
What Lauren, a CIA agent, told him was shocking.
Multiple countries’ intelligence agencies had entered Korea, and China and Japan wanted Korea in chaos, secretly supporting various organizations from behind.
She said that the Nationwide Unification Faction and the Gold Dream Faction—both dominating Gangnam—had already fallen for Chinese and Japanese operations and were essentially their underlings.
Anyone trying to throw Korean society into chaos had to be uprooted, and while Chairman Yang was ruthless and quick with profit calculations, he had no ties to the other organizations, so Lauren believed an alliance was possible.
For Cheolmin, who didn’t know where to even begin against a massive enemy like Gangnam, Lauren was an oasis.
Her information gave him direction.
She also warned that his opponents would use firearms without hesitation, and promised that even if he responded with force, the US side would take steps so the Korean government wouldn’t treat it as a problem.
She said it was easiest to understand as something like a “license to kill” from the legendary British spy 007—issued through the Korean government.
When Cheolmin asked why she was helping him this much, Lauren answered with a grim expression.
Korea’s government, because of factional interest and political calculations, could no longer perform basic state functions, and countries hostile to the US wanted to neutralize and destroy Korea, America’s ally.
If the US stepped in openly, it would create too many problems, so they wanted to use Choi Cheolmin as a proxy to fight the villains trying to destabilize Korea.
Cheolmin felt gratitude that sank into his bones.
Feeling the weight of the pistol inside his jacket, he entered the building.
A twenty-story building.
Chairman Yang’s businesses occupied it entirely.
Each floor housed travel agencies, a savings bank, and security firms. Chairman Yang’s office was on the top floor.
When Cheolmin entered the lobby, a woman in a suit greeted him and guided him to the elevator.
When the high-rise express elevator doors opened, he was immediately in Chairman Yang’s office.
The entire twentieth floor was used as one space—huge glass walls, reception sofas, desks.
Chairman Yang, in his eighties, wore a white suit and had a sturdy, hardened look.
“Hello. My name is Choi Cheolmin. I’ve always heard of Chairman Yang’s reputation.”
Cheolmin greeted him politely.
Chairman Yang frowned, took out a cigar from his desk drawer, lit it, and spoke.
“I thought you could fight, but it seems your head doesn’t work. You came to the wrong place. This is a trap.”
As he spoke, a side door opened, and more than twenty heavily armed brutes stepped out with guns.
And among them was the monster who had fought Cheolmin in the mountains before.