Ghost City for Sale
"You used to live in Paju, right? I saw it on the news and figured I'd come tell you."
"Hey, nice work."
Do-ha looked at the article on his phone.
They're lifting the regulations all of a sudden?
The comments under the article ran the full spectrum of reactions.
Looking over the main article, Do-ha let out a snort of laughter.
Plenty of opinions had been thrown around, but his own thinking lined up with a few of the comments.
With next year's elections coming up, it is about time they started making moves.
Just as several commenters had pointed out, even if sales were allowed, nobody was going to buy the land. The government had no real will to reclaim Paju or any of the other ghost cities. There was nothing to gain from it in the first place. And above all, the Hunter Association was never going to lift a finger to help the government side.
Judging by the article, the two of them aren't getting along.
That was hardly surprising. The government treated Hunters like civil servants, as if everything they did was simply their duty to the nation. The Association, for its part, found that attitude deeply offensive. The two groups had spent years locked in a cold war of pride, and only recently had the government begun to lower its head, little by little.
"I looked it up — people are saying you should buy up Paju land early."
"Probably the current landowners working overtime on the PR."
Still, not a single person would actually buy.
They're running around talking about this like it's some redevelopment announcement…
Paju was packed with monsters. Anyone foolish enough to buy on the strength of a rumor would walk in and lose their life.
"I can already see the Association clutching the backs of their necks over this."
The ones who would take the heaviest damage from the government's little stunt were almost certainly the Hunter Association.
"We had something like this once, remember?"
"You're talking about the Halcas Kingdom on the Northern Continent?"
"Yeah, that one."
A horde of monsters had come down over the mountains, reduced the kingdom to rubble overnight, and made themselves a nest. The king had died fighting them, and the casualties had been staggering. For fifteen years after that, the fallen kingdom had been nothing but a monster den.
"I thought that kingdom got reclaimed, though? When was that?"
Do-ha tilted his head.
"You don't remember?"
"I remember people spreading the news that the kingdom had been retaken… but who did it, when, and why — that's drawing a blank…"
What was this? Why couldn't he remember?
"Ahh… so you don't remember, huh?"
"?"
Canteas's expression looked strange. Why did he look so wronged and furious?
"Do you have any idea how much I suffered clearing out those monsters… and you're telling me you don't remember??"
"You reclaimed it?!"
"Yes!!"
"Why??"
"What do you mean, why? Because you ordered me to, that's why!!"
One day, while Do-ha had been drinking with his friends, he had shown up at the prison out of nowhere and ordered Canteas to retake the Halcas Kingdom. If he reclaimed the land intact, Do-ha had promised, he would give him a laboratory instead of a cell and treat him like a person. What choice did a Lich have? He had simply done as he was told.
The catch was that Do-ha had already wiped out more than ninety percent of his undead army, so retaking Halcas had been a genuine ordeal.
"And after all that, you don't even remember… That's too much! If you'd just left my army alone, I could have reclaimed it easily!"
"S… sorry…"
Do-ha scratched his head as he apologized. Then something felt off, and he tilted his head again.
"Wait… thinking about it, I don't actually have anything to apologize for, do I?"
"Wow… what a shameless devil…"
"You raised an undead legion of a billion to conquer the continent, didn't you? Why exactly was I supposed to leave that alone, you deranged bag of bones?"
Smack!
In the end, Canteas took one to the head. What kind of nonsense was this?
"The way you talk, anyone listening would think I was the one in the wrong. Was I supposed to just sit back and let you conquer the continent?"
"Ah. Fair point."
Rubbing the back of his skull, Canteas nodded. Come to think of it, that was true.
"Anyway, now I finally understand why you were wandering around inside the Empire like it was your own house."
At some point, a Lich who was supposed to be locked in a prison cell had started roaming around far too freely, and Do-ha had wondered what was going on. But his companions had all said he had given permission, so he had let it slide.
"So why retake the Halcas Kingdom back then? That place was one of the ones that opposed you to the bitter end, wasn't it?"
"Their land, their assets, and their mines — I bought them all up cheap."
He had approached the nobles who had lost everything in a single stroke and purchased the land and mines they still held on paper. With the monsters there, none of it had been worth anything anyway.
"Which brings me to this… I've had a good idea."
"A good idea?"
"I'll give you the money. Go out and dig up everything you can on the buildings. Use magic if you need to. And change your appearance with illusion magic while you're at it."
"I already know that much!"
Looking at the article on his phone, Do-ha smiled. As it happened, he needed a base of operations right about now.
A day later.
The door burst open.
"Ugh, I'm exhausted."
From the previous morning straight through to now, Canteas had been meeting with Paju landowners and everyone connected to them. He had expected Earth to be roughly like Belhart — but on this world, even the tiniest scrap of land had a different owner?! Because of that, he had gone without meals, chasing down information nonstop.
"How did it go?"
"I got the info on every last booger-sized plot in the corners, too."
Canteas pulled a bundle of documents from his coat and dropped it in front of Do-ha. He had transcribed only the important information with magic.
Do-ha flipped through the pages.
"It took a bit because the land was carved up and split among so many people."
"Yeah, I can see that."
Reading through the documents, Do-ha nodded. For all his grumbling, Canteas had done the job properly.
"But something's off. I met the landowners one by one, and the real owners are different people."
"Ah. Don't tell me?"
"Yeah. Just like you expected — an organization called the Brown Bear Gang swallowed everything. It wasn't like that from the start. They bought it all up for dirt cheap after Paju turned into a ghost city. And those guys have a boss of their own higher up. Flip to the next page."
At his words, Do-ha turned the page.
"Is this solid?"
"Yeah. The one backing those thugs from behind is the former mayor of Paju."
He had used magic to pull the truth out of real estate agents and building owners who had refused to talk. None of them had ever said a word to anyone, but every last one of them knew the real situation. The man currently serving as mayor of Goyang Special City — formerly mayor of Paju — was their backer.
"Those Brown Bear Gang guys with the weird name are apparently pretty well known. They've got several B-Rank Awakened under them, and the boss himself is supposedly A-Rank."
"Makes sense. That's how you get to live as a gangster in an age like this."
In a world overflowing with extraordinary power, you could no longer play the thug just by being a little strong and knowing how to fight. If the other guy turned out to be Awakened, you were dead that same day. These ones had simply adapted to the times.
"The landowners were all ordinary people, so they were hard to track down. Without magic, I never would have found them either."
"Figureheads. Straw men."
That way you could dodge investigations and cut tails clean when needed. The method was the same whether you were in Belhart or on Earth. But Canteas was a Lich. Through dark magic, he had uncovered everything.
"With a politician covering for them, they must have had nothing to fear. Still, why call themselves the Brown Bear Gang?"
From what he had researched, the names of organizations on Earth — or rather, in Korea — were all strange.
"Who knows. Maybe the boss looks like a brown bear."
After more than a month of studying Earth and the country called Korea, Canteas knew what kind of figure a mayor was. The details differed in plenty of ways, but roughly speaking, they were similar to the nobles of Belhart.
"I guess no matter the dimension, places where people live all end up looking the same."
In Belhart, plenty of nobles had backed criminal organizations too. Some territories had been gang dens from top to bottom.
"With a politician in the mix, this gets complicated. What are you going to do?"
When people with real power were involved, problems always got messier.
"Handle it."
He needed Paju. It was his hometown, and more than that, he needed a base of operations. He could hardly use this tiny house as one.
"There's a politician involved, you know?"
Do-ha held out his hand.
"Do I look like someone who cares about that? More importantly — you already dug up whatever dirt you could find on them. Hand it over."
"As expected. Your instincts are terrifying."
At Do-ha's words, Canteas pulled another set of documents from his coat and held them out. This was hardly the first or second time he had done this kind of work. In fact, he had scraped together every single weakness of the Goyang Special City mayor. The connection between the Brown Bear Gang and the former mayor of Paju. Every crime they had committed, complete with evidence. He had even brought a roster listing the personal details of every Brown Bear Gang member. What kind of gangsters kept resumes?
"It's not that my instincts are sharp. It's that you and I have done this enough times."
Do-ha spent about thirty minutes scanning the documents full of blackmail material, then stood up from his seat.
"Let's move."
"You already finished reading all of that?"
"Yeah."
"You memorized it??"
"Yeah. Why?"
"……."
Even Canteas, who had gathered the information himself, still had pieces he mixed up — and this man had looked at all of it for a mere thirty minutes and memorized the lot?
Had he memorized the Brown Bear Gang members' faces too?
"Having their resumes on hand makes cleaning them up a lot more convenient."
"…You really did memorize all of it. Unbelievable."
In the end, Canteas shook his head and rose to follow Do-ha.