Chapter 76
Chapter 76
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 76
Chapter Title: The Assassin's Game
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“So, the estimated monthly income from Earth and Azelan is…”
Wang-sik did the math in his head but gave up.
“A lot. Is that what you’re saying?”
“You don’t seem to understand at all, so I’ll say it again.”
“Do you have to?”
“On Earth, we’ll focus on growing the Guseong Exchange. Our current market share is nine percent. We’ll exceed twenty percent within a year, and in about three years, we’ll be the number one exchange. The Guseong Research Institute will also complete the gate scanner within three months. Since we’ve allocated thirty percent of the exchange and institute’s operating profits to Mad Castle’s operational costs, that should be at least a hundred billion won per quarter, or over four hundred billion a year. In three years, it could triple.”
“That’s a lot of money.”
At the listless response, Oh Min-jae sighed and continued.
“For now, we’ll invest that money into the Azelan business. We’re going to acquire the Alchemist Guild, mines, and monster supply stores to hide the fact that we’re trading through gates. We’ll be in the red at first due to the initial investment, but we can turn a profit in six months.”
“Ah, I see.”
“Once we’re profitable, we’ll absorb smaller trading companies to grow in size… Seon-gi, where are you going?”
Sa Seon-gi, who had been trying to sneak away, froze.
“Guys, are you really going to be like this?”
“Min-jae, what are you so worried about?”
Wang-sik said, placing a hand on Oh Min-jae’s shoulder, who was being uncharacteristically talkative.
“Don’t worry, we’ll come back safe. This is your plan, after all. It’ll be executed perfectly.”
Oh Min-jae lowered his head for a moment before speaking his true feelings.
“That’s why I’m worried. That you guys will get hurt because of me.”
The plan was Oh Min-jae’s brainchild.
—*Let’s absorb them instead of destroying them. They’ll be very useful.*
Oh Min-jae’s plan was brilliant. It was so meticulous that neither Wang-sik nor Sa Seon-gi had any critiques, which only made Oh Min-jae more enthusiastic as he fleshed out the details.
But once the plan was complete, anxiety set in.
‘It got too big.’
The moment Wang-sik accepted the plan, he had started to feel uneasy.
‘What if they get hurt because of me?’
Planning and execution were two different things.
“Min-jae.”
Wang-sik said with a serious expression.
“That’s your role. You decided to fight this way. Your plan was excellent, and that’s why we accepted it. This isn’t something one person is responsible for.”
Oh Min-jae knew that.
“Let’s trust each other. This is something we’ll have to keep doing from now on.”
“Okay. Don’t get hurt.”
“Right. You do your part and don’t worry either.”
Oh Min-jae met Wang-sik’s eyes, then looked at Sa Seon-gi.
“Seon-gi, be careful.”
Sa Seon-gi gave a small nod in response.
“Well then, shall we go devour the southern underworld?”
Wang-sik left with his trademark confident smile, Sa Seon-gi at his side, and departed from the trading company.
Neresa, a resort city on the southernmost tip of the Azelan Continent.
An ocean city gracing a beautiful sea, Neresa was developed enough to be counted among the five great cities.
Its atmosphere was quite different, focused more on tourism and leisure than on magic or military might.
This development had given the city a distinct character, and it now looked so different it was hard to believe it was on the same continent.
Ornate carriages came and went along the seaside streets, which were lined with long rows of mushroom-shaped deciduous trees.
People in even more extravagant clothes stepped out of the ostentatiously decorated carriages, haughtily gazing at the white sandy beaches where waves rolled in.
It was a rather strange sight.
For every carriage that rolled down the white brick road, a group of at least four people ran behind it, bowing their heads and catching their panting breaths before the nobles even disembarked.
A world starkly divided between nobles and slaves.
It made one truly feel the saying that circulated in the resort city of Neresa.
When one noble uses two slaves, it feeds four merchants.
This was a place people came to spend money, so it was more glamorous than any other city.
As dusk fell and the sun began to set, the luxury accommodations lit up with brilliant lights, as if in competition.
They placed catalysts developed by alchemists into crystal spheres enchanted with light magic to produce a variety of colors.
The upkeep was considerable, but since the income was just as high, not a single place was an exception.
In fact, they competed to create even more dazzling lights.
Thanks to this, the beachside street became a beautiful, fairy-tale-like scene, drawing even more people out onto the streets.
But not everyone was enjoying themselves.
“Shit, so now I’m just supposed to be a sidekick?”
A man in his early fifties who had just exited a famous inn called the ‘Rainbow Dolphin’ spat out a curse.
His displeased eyes glared at the five-story inn he had just left, but there was nothing he could do.
“Chief, what happened?”
A man approached and asked him.
“They told us to get our hands off the gambling house.”
“What? Without that, we’ll have to let go of half the men. And we don’t even have that many left.”
“Shit! What am I supposed to do when they say they’ll kill us all!”
“Hah, those bastards. If I just followed my gut…”
The young man glared at the inn, grinding his teeth.
But what could he do, when even his chief had come out empty-handed?
All that remained was a sense of powerlessness.
“Let’s go back for now. We need to think of a way.”
“Is there a way? They’ve taken ninety percent of our business, and now they want to take the last thing we have, the gambling house. This will continue until we submit to Drepia.”
“I know. But we have to at least prevent an immediate dissolution. There might be a chance. If it really comes to it, I’ll have to slit that bastard’s throat.”
The two swallowed their anger and left.
Boarding their carriage, they left the boundaries of the great city of Neresa.
There was a time when their influence was so great that people would clear the way on their own upon seeing the crest engraved on the carriage.
The Dusk Mercenaries, who once controlled half of Neresa.
Though called a mercenary group, they were a massive organization that had shared control of the underworld. But when a new lord came to power, he ignored the two giant organizations and backed a new group instead.
That group was Drepia, the current master of the southern underworld, which now controlled Neresa and the surrounding cities.
Drepia’s Godfather, Demah, was an incredibly skilled man, far beyond their reach, and the forces he commanded were so powerful that there was nothing they could do.
With financial power, political influence through the lord, and insurmountable military strength, one of the organizations was annihilated while fighting back, while the Dusk Mercenaries, who had surrendered, managed to survive.
‘The absorption of the Dusk Mercenaries holds symbolic meaning.’
If not for that, their lives would not have lasted until today.
“Hoo.”
Dusk, the leader of the Dusk Mercenaries, let out a long sigh. No matter how he thought about it, there was no way out of the current situation.
“Do I have to surrender in the end?”
It was then that he had the thought.
The carriage, leaving the residential area formed beyond the city walls, shook for a moment, and a faint breeze blew in.
“Chief, are you alright?”
Dusk replied to his subordinate who was driving the carriage.
“I’m fine.”
He said. And then he realized.
That answer had been too hasty.
“Who…”
Before he could finish, cold metal touched his neck.
Someone was sitting across from him. The opponent had settled into the seat as naturally as a leaf carried in by the wind.
The unwelcome guest wore a featureless black mask, revealing only emotionless eyes.
Faced with an ambush beyond imagination, Dusk swallowed dryly. He realized his life was already forfeit.
“You bastards, so this is how you were going to kill me?”
The realization of his impending death sparked a courage born of desperation. Spitting out a curse was his only act of defiance, but his gaze was murderous.
Yet the assassin simply met his gaze calmly. The strange thing was that the blade at his neck pressed no further.
“What do you want?”
There was only one reason not to kill him immediately. It meant there was something he desired.
But the assassin didn’t answer.
Incredibly, the assassin silently sheathed his blade, opened the door, and jumped from the moving carriage.
“What the…”
Dusk was bewildered.
What just happened?
“Chief!”
As the carriage door opened, his subordinate hastily reined in the horses and ran to Dusk.
“What happened?”
Dusk couldn’t answer. He didn’t know what had happened either.
“Let’s just go, quickly.”
All he wanted was to get out of here as fast as possible.
His subordinate was loyal but dim-witted.
“Maybe they got the wrong person?”
Dusk sighed.
“An assassin got on the carriage after mistaking the person?”
“Yes. Assassins are people too, they can make mistakes…”
“Hey! You crazy bastard! Do you hear yourself talking?!”
Dusk smacked the back of his subordinate’s head.
“I’m sorry.”
“To think I’ve kept a moron like this as my man!”
The incident just now had left Dusk’s nerves utterly frayed.
“Let’s go somewhere with a lot of people.”
As night deepened, they entered a traveler’s rest stop. It was a small place with one mid-tier inn and two shabby ones, but it also had a general store and a blacksmith.
“It should be safer with more people around.”
Still shaken by the assassin, he took a seat in the very center of the inn’s first-floor dining hall.
Just as he finished his meal safely, his subordinate, sitting opposite him, raised a finger.
“Huh?”
“What?”
“Chief, your neck…”
“What about my neck?”
As Dusk brought a hand to his neck, his subordinate urgently shouted.
“Don’t move!”
The subordinate shot up from his seat, came over to Dusk, and carefully plucked something with his fingers.
It was a rather thick needle. Thick enough to easily take a life if it pierced a person’s throat.
“This was stuck in your neck, Chief.”
Dusk gulped.
“What in the world…”
He realized something was terribly wrong.
The crisis continued.
Afraid of being alone, he deliberately spent the night in the dining hall, but a dagger flew through a slightly open window, grazing his cheek as it passed.
Startled, he went up to his room, quickly shut the door, and turned around. The black-masked assassin was standing right there.
“W-Why are you doing this?”
But the assassin vanished again.
Dusk was terrified.
He huddled in the carriage all the way until he reached his base in the small city of Ellaim.
In just one day, his anger had vanished, replaced only by fear.
He met the man in the black mask again when he arrived at his headquarters, the mercenary base.
He had summoned all of his meager fifty subordinates to stand guard, but it was useless.
The five men right beside him were knocked unconscious in an instant, and the man in black walked leisurely through the fallen subordinates.
“Y-You son of a bitch! If you’re going to kill me, just do it!”
It was a final act of defiance. In response, the man in the black mask tossed a note.
The note, fluttering against the air’s resistance, landed with a single line written on it.
—*Protect the gambling house.*
The man in the black mask vanished again.
It was an impossible task.
Refusing to give up the gambling house would only give Drepia an excuse to use force.
They were only holding back recently because they were busy with several large ventures; they were a group that had no hesitation in using force.
And yet, he was told to protect the gambling house.
‘If I don’t obey, he’ll really kill me.’
The assassin was on a level he couldn’t handle. But protecting the gambling house meant the same thing.
He would die at the hands of Drepia.
“Shit! What the hell kind of person is he…”
Now, even the option of surrendering was gone.
Time slipped by while he was trapped, unable to do anything.
On the tenth day after Drepia had ordered him to withdraw.
News arrived that drove Dusk, who had become a wreck from deep contemplation, even further into madness.
“Chief! We’re in big trouble!”
“What is it?”
“C-Carson is dead!”
“Carson?”
His tired mind slowly recalled the meaning of that name.
The man sent by Drepia to keep watch.
The hair on his body stood on end.
“He got into a fight with a customer and was beaten to death with a hammer. The two men who came with Carson, too, the same…”
“What?”
Not one, but all three were dead.
“Son of a bitch…”
Now, there was no choice.