Chapter 4. A Rotten Day
Chapter 4. A Rotten Day
After they disappeared, I went back to my workout.
Then a chime sounded, and the door to Room 204 opened.
An overnight guest was checking out early.
When a room checks out this early, the person on duty can clean it and take more overnight guests.
If Chanhyeok and I sell more than forty overnight stays, we get an extra allowance.
We call it “hitting a double.” On a normal weekend, we hit anywhere from five to ten doubles.
The double allowance is 10,000 won per room.
That means anywhere from 50,000 to 100,000 won in extra pay. The base salary is minimum wage, but this is why lodging work is categorized as a high-income job.
But Chanhyeok, who hates cleaning, always grumbles that even if we get doubles, it’s still too exhausting.
If your body is tired, I guess money becomes annoying too.
“Have a good day.”
I got off the elevator, greeted the backs of a middle-aged couple as they hurried off, then carried a ladder up to the third-floor hallway.
I opened the ladder, climbed up, and rotated the third-floor hallway camera back into position.
Then I tightened the angle-adjustment bolt with a screwdriver.
After finishing the cleaning for Room 204 and turning the sign on, a guest arrived in less than five minutes. Once we were full again, I turned the sign off and quietly tried to close my eyes.
That was when I saw the two vans from earlier appear again on the road monitor.
Looks like they hospitalized the colleague who had suffered cardiac arrest and came back.
Right.
Of course they wouldn’t just stop.
After thinking for a moment, I moved the rear van with telekinesis.
On the screen, the van that had been about to stop suddenly lunged forward and rammed the van in front.
“BANG!”
It hit so hard I could hear it even at the counter. On screen, the collision point was badly crumpled, and pale smoke billowed up.
The doors opened, and a few men crawled out.
The impact must have been stronger than expected.
They shouted noisily at each other, but I couldn’t hear the words from the counter.
A few minutes later, an ambulance arrived.
They loaded two men who looked seriously injured onto stretchers and moved them into the ambulance.
I thought they were leaving, but then a few thugs crossed the parking lot and started walking toward the motel.
I applied strong pressure to the cerebral artery of the middle one with telekinesis.
He crumpled to the floor like he’d fainted, and his startled companions shouted toward the 119 responders behind them.
I only meant to compress the blood vessel, but the human body was more fragile than I expected—it ruptured.
He was bleeding in his brain.
If treatment was delayed, he might be disabled or even have his life in danger, but the emergency responders were right beside him, so he wouldn’t die.
I’d never manipulated someone else’s body like this with telekinesis before, so I failed at controlling the force.
Next time, I only needed half this strength.
Twice in one night…
Did they have absolute certainty the goods were here?
They were probably probing everywhere, but the way they kept coming like this meant it wouldn’t end easily.
I’d heard that even a very small amount of drugs could be worth tens of billions—hundreds of billions. It would definitely be worth more than cash.
No one would give up that kind of money and product so easily.
Damn.
Another room checked out. I needed to clean it and sell it fast.
10:13 a.m.
Chanhyeok came running in, flustered.
“Sorry! The subway was late today. You’re tired, right? Go clock out.”
“No, don’t apologize. But there is something to hand over today.”
I said that while looking at him, sweating not a drop, as he panted and struggled for breath.
“Why? Did something happen?”
“You know that guest from Room 310? The room where the man stayed alone.”
“Yeah. I went up myself to take the payment. Why? For someone covered in tattoos, he was polite.”
“Yesterday, he didn’t answer the checkout call, so I unlocked the door and went in—he was hanging there, dead.”
As I said it, I deliberately removed all trace of a smile and kept my face blank.
This was the kind of conversation you didn’t smile through.
But the moment I spoke without expression, Chanhyeok’s face went white like he’d seen a ghost.
“Ah… ah… suicide?”
“Yes. The police investigated and took the body.”
“And then?”
“Pardon? ‘And then’?”
I put my smile back on and looked at him.
“So it’s over?”
Was it over?
It definitely didn’t feel over…
But today was my day off.
Today’s problems were for the manager and Chanhyeok to handle.
“Yes. That’s all.”
Smiling, I said that, then bought a hamburger at the convenience store in front of the motel and went up to my dorm.
Yesterday was Saturday, so we hit eleven doubles.
But because of the uninvited guests at dawn, I barely got any personal training in, so I wasn’t tired at all.
Even if you don’t feel tired, regular sleep is important.
Health comes from regular living and sufficiently enough sleep.
After washing up and devouring the hamburger, I slept like a rock.
Around evening, I woke up, threw on a tracksuit, went outside, and headed to a large bookstore.
I knew the rough layout of the human body, but I wanted systematic knowledge. In the specialized section, I bought medical books—anatomy diagrams, basic medical knowledge, and organ theory.
They were insanely thick and expensive.
After eating a bowl of sundae-gukbap and coming back, I opened the backpack I’d stuffed into the corner of the wardrobe yesterday.
The white drug bags weighed roughly three to five kilograms.
I searched online. It said five kilograms was worth about 5 billion won and was enough for 160,000 people to use.
I’d assumed it might be worth hundreds of billions, but this was lower than expected.
As for the cash: there were twenty-eight bundles of 50,000-won notes. One bundle was 1,000 bills—50,000,000 won.
Total: 1.4 billion won.
I took out two bundles, then put the cash and drugs back into the backpack.
Then I triple-sealed it in black plastic bags and wrapped it over and over with duct tape.
Outside, I shoved it into the gap between the rooftop exterior wall and the motel sign, secured it with a clothesline so the wind couldn’t knock it loose, then finished by wrapping it again with duct tape.
It looked safe even in a torrential downpour or typhoon.
Even leaning over the rooftop railing, the backpack wasn’t visible. To see it, you had to float outside the railing like I was doing now. I hid it there with telekinesis, but if someone else wanted to retrieve it, they’d need rope access or a ladder truck.
Eating popcorn from the convenience store, I lay down and read the medical books.
It was hard to understand because of all the English and technical terms, but there were lots of illustrations, which helped.
While looking at the diagrams, I explored my own internal body with telekinesis and memorized each organ’s function and location.
Recently, Choi Cheolmin, boss of Isu Gang, who had taken control of the western Seoul area, was going out of his mind.
After years of war, he had finally pushed out the old powers and firmly established his territory—only a few days ago.
Then Yoonseop, who had lived and struggled with him for a long time and was basically his right hand, fled with 100 million won of the organization’s funds.
Now that they controlled territory in Seoul, even mid-level leadership could make that kind of money soon, but maybe all the hardship had finally snapped something in him and he did something stupid.
Cheolmin was brutal to enemies but fairly lenient to his own people, and he planned to grab the bastard, punish him lightly, and forgive him.
But it turned out Yoonseop hadn’t run because of the 100 million won.
Without Cheolmin knowing, the bastard had used the name of Isu Gang and signed a drug deal with an Incheon organization—then took the 1.3 billion won down payment and the drugs and ran.
Cheolmin only learned the truth yesterday when an Incheon faction member came in person and demanded to know why the five kilograms of drugs they had handed over wasn’t being distributed.
Furious to the core, Cheolmin used every connection he had to hunt the bastard down. Then the police called Yoonseop’s family.
They said Yoonseop had committed suicide at a motel in Seoul.
Cheolmin begged a favor from an older boss he’d known for years who had connections inside the police, and heard that Yoonseop’s belongings at death were only an empty hiking backpack and a wallet with a few hundred thousand won.
An empty hiking backpack…
The cash and drugs had definitely been in there.
That meant someone had intercepted it.
Cheolmin and Isu Gang had to recover the drugs and money.
He didn’t know how Incheon handled drug distribution, but Cheolmin, who knew Seoul’s ecosystem well, couldn’t tolerate drug business in his territory.
If they ran drugs in Seoul, the police would catch their trail within months, and the organization would disintegrate.
But to cancel the contract with the Incheon faction, they had to return the product and the down payment Yoonseop had taken.
Even if they returned them, it could still become a war. They couldn’t just play dead and ignore it. After a long war, they urgently needed several years to reorganize and stabilize internally.
If they went to war now with another organization, they had no chance of winning.
Cheolmin sent his men to comb through Yoonseop’s movements and ordered them to go to the motel and search it.
But a little after 3 a.m., Jaejin, the executive who led the men to the motel, suddenly suffered a myocardial infarction and was taken to the ER. The remaining men returned empty-handed.
“So you searched the motel?”
“No. Jaejin hyung was in too critical a condition…”
“You insane bastards! Why aren’t you moving? Even if he went down, the rest of you should’ve gone and turned that place upside down!”
When Cheolmin roared, they rushed out. But soon after, he got a ridiculous phone call.
“Boss… we got into an accident. A lot of the guys are hurt. I think Yoonseop hyung’s ghost is at that motel.”
“What accident? A ghost? What the hell are you saying?”
“The second van suddenly surged forward and collided with the first van right in front of the motel. Two guys are seriously hurt, and the rest are heading to the hospital for treatment.”
Cheolmin, stunned, screamed.
“You idiots. There are no ghosts in this world! So you’re telling me you’re all getting hauled to the hospital and did nothing?”
“No… we did crash, but we still tried to follow orders, so Donghun hyung went into the motel. But after a few steps, he collapsed for no reason. The 119 responders say it’s symptoms of acute cerebral hemorrhage. The guys are anxious, saying it’s Yoonseop hyung’s ghost.”
A ghost… proving himself, Cheolmin took a deep breath and continued.
“Fine. Go to the hospital and get treated. I’ll come too.”
Cheolmin couldn’t understand what was happening.
At this point, it was like he’d been cursed with terrible luck.
He decided he had to go personally.
He wasn’t afraid of people, but he didn’t like ghosts. Maybe Yoonseop’s vengeful spirit really was there.
But whether it was a ghost or just rotten luck… they had to recover the money and drugs Yoonseop took. That was the only way the organization survived.
It was early Sunday morning now.
Since the police had been through and still hadn’t found the money or drugs, he had initially suspected elsewhere—but now the motel looked suspicious. If it really was some ghost or evil spirit playing tricks, it might be better to get talismans from a powerful shaman he knew and go there.