Chapter 6
Chapter 6
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 6
Chapter Title: It Suits You Well
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CRASH!
The roof of the car the thief landed on caved in, and its alarm blared.
“Ugh! Aaargh!”
Mixed in with the noise was the boy's pitiful scream.
In the suffocating tension and heavy air, Kanghyeok turned toward the stairs with a blank expression.
“Hey, Chino.”
The little thief's friend called out from behind, but Kanghyeok didn't look back.
He walked on.
Then, before heading down the stairs, he spoke without so much as a glance.
“Choose your friends wisely. It only takes a moment to ruin your life.”
Feeling the eyes on his back, Kanghyeok put a cigarette to his lips and flicked the flint of his lighter.
He exhaled slowly.
Leaving a trail of smoke, Kanghyeok descended the apartment stairs. He must have taken some time, because an unfamiliar car was already waiting at the entrance.
It was a mid-size SUV, not yesterday's black sedan, but the person behind the wheel appeared to be the same.
Vroom!
The SUV, a luxury vehicle, let out a growl as if to ask what took him so long.
The kind you didn't see around here.
Kanghyeok threw his cigarette to the ground, crushed it with his foot, and the passenger-side window rolled down to reveal Leila's face.
“Get in.”
As Kanghyeok climbed into the seat behind the passenger's, Leila, in the driver's seat, moved her foot from the brake to the accelerator.
“You're right on time. But I heard a loud noise?”
“It was nothing.”
Leila glanced at Kanghyeok in the rearview mirror.
Perhaps because his laptop had been stolen, his aura was starkly different from yesterday. So much so that he seemed like a completely different person.
He almost looked like the Kanghyeok from his active-duty days.
“There's a bag next to you.”
Kanghyeok found the bag right behind the driver's seat.
“Go ahead and open it.”
Kanghyeok shot Leila a wary look as he placed the bag on the seat next to him. It was a strangely heavy briefcase, and he unfastened the buckles and opened it cautiously.
Then, his lips twisted into a smirk as he let out a breathy laugh.
“Do you like it?”
Kanghyeok's gaze shifted from the bag to Leila.
“I don't need it.”
“Put it on. It's been approved by the higher-ups.”
“That's why I don't need it.”
“It'll be difficult in what you're wearing now.”
“...”
Kanghyeok sucked his lips in and turned his gaze back to the bag.
Inside, neatly folded, was a suit identical to the one Leila was wearing.
“It's not the same suit you used to wear. This one is interwoven with synthetic Kevlar fibers.”
“Ballistic rating?”
“It won't stop a sniper rifle, but it can stop a shotgun blast.”
Kanghyeok picked up the suit.
A black suit, a white dress shirt.
And a black tie.
The cufflinks, which denoted status and rank, were made of silver and aquamarine.
‘For temporary rank.’
It meant the suit was only approved for those granted temporary use. There wasn't a significant difference in performance, but he wondered why this specific rank.
It was likely to minimize Kanghyeok's psychological resistance to returning to work.
Not a bad choice.
Kanghyeok started to take off the clothes he was wearing.
He stripped off the old clothes he'd worn for the past year while staring at his laptop, set them aside, and slipped his arms into the dress shirt from the bag.
“Did you find anything?”
Kanghyeok answered Leila's question while buttoning his shirt.
“The red brick house on 3rd Street. It went to a fence there named Hancock.”
“And the source of this information?”
“The thief.”
Kanghyeok shifted in the cramped space, taking off his pants and pulling on the suit trousers.
He neatly tucked the shirt into his trousers, fastened the button and zipper, and took a belt from the bag.
It was a simple belt, made of calfskin.
“Hancock is backed by a gang.”
Kanghyeok nodded as he strapped a pistol holster to his body.
It had taken Leila twenty minutes to get here.
Even if she had started investigating then, that was enough time to find this much information.
“Which gang?”
“The leader is Johannes Brahms. They have about 120 members. They primarily secure funds by distributing drugs and stolen goods overseas. If you don't get it back soon, it might be shipped abroad.”
Kanghyeok, who was holstering his pistol, snapped his head up.
“A hundred and twenty?”
“They're at war with another gang. Apparently, they've grown rapidly recently to secure more manpower.”
Is that too many?
Leila asked with her eyes through the rearview mirror, but Kanghyeok didn't answer, instead fastening the cufflinks on his shirt sleeves.
After securing the cuffs that held his sleeves tight in place of buttons, he shrugged on the jacket.
He fastened only the top button of the two-button jacket, then finally took a pair of dress shoes from the bag.
There's nothing more unsightly than being dressed sharply in a suit while wearing disgustingly dirty sneakers.
“It suits you well.”
Leila murmured, watching Kanghyeok fasten a tie clip to his tie.
Kanghyeok had just showered, so he was clean-shaven.
His hair was a bit shaggy, but he looked much neater than yesterday.
It was nice.
It felt like meeting the Kanghyeok from his active-duty days again.
“Will you be needing a gun?”
Kanghyeok, who was about to pick up the shotgun beside him, shifted his gaze to Leila.
“If you need anything, just say the word. We have everything from assault rifles to bazookas.”
“That won't be necessary.”
The information and the clothes.
Kanghyeok's tone implied that was enough, and Leila didn't press further.
In the heavy silence, the car continued down the road.
The destination was the red brick house on 3rd Street.
Where the fence named Hancock was, and where Kanghyeok's laptop had ended up.
A fence backed by a gang.
And that gang made its money by shipping stolen goods overseas.
If the laptop was shipped abroad, it was over.
If it was disassembled and the disk containing the cryptocurrency was sent overseas, he'd have to assume he'd never get it back.
What if they'd already wiped the disk?
What if the cryptocurrency was lost?
They would pay the price.
Vrrrrm.
Slowing down, the SUV turned a corner and entered 3rd Street. A building made of red brick stood out in the middle of the grimy alley.
“Stop the car.”
“Will you not be needing backup?”
Leila asked in a tone one might use to offer dessert after a meal, and Kanghyeok answered by shaking his head.
“Check the inside pocket of your jacket.”
With a curious expression, Kanghyeok reached into his jacket and pulled out a device resembling a Bluetooth earpiece.
“This is...”
“A communication device. This is what they look like these days.”
Leila tapped her own ear.
It was a message asking him to at least maintain communication, even if he refused to fight alongside her.
Having already received her help and even borrowed the suit, Kanghyeok silently placed the device in his ear.
Screech.
The moment the car stopped in front of the red building, Kanghyeok was about to jump out.
“Oh, and about the Bitcoin.”
But Leila's voice immediately caught his attention.
“I checked earlier, and it's up fifteen percent. I thought you should know.”
Kanghyeok looked at Leila, his hand on the car door.
A fifteen-percent return was by no means small.
It might sound like going from a hundred dollars to a hundred and fifteen, but what if the initial investment was ten million dollars?
That was a profit of one and a half million dollars, and if you'd put in twenty million, you'd have a profit of three million.
Earning a fifteen-percent return on an investment is incredibly difficult.
If it were stocks, it would be enough to make you consider selling and buying back in on a dip.
But Kanghyeok knew that a mere fifteen-percent increase was not the end for Bitcoin.
Still, it seemed the rally had begun, which meant he absolutely had to get it back.
“Get what you came for.”
Thump.
Hearing Leila's voice, Kanghyeok closed the car door.
He then turned his gaze toward the red brick house and started walking, shotgun in hand.
The eyes of people on the street followed Kanghyeok.
The Asian, the spineless loser.
The guy you could ignore.
These were the usual looks Kanghyeok received, but today, they felt completely different.
They were similar to the looks Leila and William got.
What's a suit like that doing around here?
It was the look from people who didn't even recognize him as Kanghyeok.
Jingle!
As he opened the door, the smell of a bar assaulted him.
He could also feel the heat radiating from people's bodies.
The first floor was a crude imitation of a pub.
In the bar, which reeked of cheap booze and foul odors, all eyes turned to Kanghyeok.
An Asian in a suit—not a common sight around here.
And the shotgun in his hand.
The atmosphere grew sharp and cold, as if doused with ice water mixed with nails. The people filling the tables either mumbled or set down their glasses and reached for their waistbands.
Kanghyeok scanned them with his eyes.
(There are quite a few people.)
It was a transmission from Leila, who had moved the car to the front of the building. Kanghyeok remained silent.
There were indeed a lot of people.
‘Thirty-two of them.’
From the back of the crowd of people sending him hostile glares and vibes, a pot-bellied man at the counter spoke.
“What's your business?”
At his wary tone, the crowd's focus intensified on Kanghyeok's mouth. Kanghyeok reached behind him and grabbed the doorknob.
Click!
After locking the door, Kanghyeok looked at the pot-bellied man and spoke.
“I'm here to retrieve something.”
“Something?”
Sensing the tense atmosphere, Leila frowned from inside the car and sent a transmission.
(You're not planning to fight, are you? It would be better to resolve this with words.)
If this had been the Kanghyeok from his active-duty days, Leila wouldn't have sent such a message. But a year had passed since he quit, and during that time, Kanghyeok hadn't seen any fieldwork.
Seeing his room, she doubted he had even been keeping up with his physical training.
Before, it might have been different.
But the Kanghyeok of today could be in danger.
That was Leila's judgment, and she hoped he would handle the situation with as much flexibility as possible.
However,
“Give me my laptop.”
Kanghyeok ignored Leila's hopes and concerns, escalating the situation and fanning the flames of tension in the pub.
“Laptop?”
Scrape.
A few of the men near Kanghyeok scraped their chairs back, ready to stand at a moment's notice, while the pot-bellied man's gaze dropped to Kanghyeok's shotgun.
“What laptop?”
“The one the kid fenced at dawn.”
The pot-bellied man stared at Kanghyeok with a bewildered expression before he finally grasped the situation.
“So, you're here to get your property back?”
When Kanghyeok didn't respond, the pot-bellied man laughed in disbelief.
“Crazy bastard!”
Kanghyeok was something of a local celebrity, for all the wrong reasons, so the pot-bellied man knew of him.
The guy who couldn't get angry.
The guy living a pathetic life.
When asked if the owner might come looking for it, the kid who'd sold the laptop had said there was no chance, and even if he did, he was the type to run if you just scared him a little.
And now that same guy had shown up here, pathetically clutching a single gun.
“Get lost. Before I kick your ass out of here.”
The pot-bellied man waved a dismissive hand, all tension gone from his face.
It was right after that.
Shk-chk!
Kanghyeok grabbed the pump on the shotgun's barrel, racked a shell into the chamber with a flick of his wrist, and aimed it at the pot-bellied man's head.
BOOM!
Then he pulled the trigger.