I am not a good person.
That much, even if no one tells me,
I know perfectly well myself.
I’ve killed people, and I’ve stolen things.
I am absolutely not a good person.
That said, I have no desire to become a good person, either.
I just live as a bad guy.
Even so, I try to keep my promises.
A promise isn’t something someone forces you to make.
It’s a mutual agreement.
Want to meet at seven today?
Then you go to the meeting place by seven.
If you don’t think you can make seven, then you change the agreed time to eight.
If eight won’t work either, then you change the time again, or meet another day.
It’s all something that can be discussed between both parties.
Once you’ve made a promise like that, you should keep it.
Because you discussed it in order to keep it.
But every now and then, there are people who make promises like that and don’t keep them.
I think people like that are extremely rude.
I don’t know why they make promises they won’t even keep.
Well… greed can happen.
They might want to take the money without handing over the bullets.
I understand.
Greed is instinct.
It’s hard for reason to overcome instinct.
The more foolish a person is, foolish enough that they can’t even keep a promise, the harder it is for them to resist instinct.
So I understand.
If he had just taken the money and disappeared, I might have simply cursed him out once and let it slide.
The fifty million won I paid for the bullets would be a waste, but I could let it go.
Because greed is instinct.
Because that is the limit of that foolish bastard.
But he got far too greedy.
Kidnapping?
That crosses the line.
Is it because of my hyungs?
I really hate it when my people get hurt or attacked.
Even if they’re someone who gets in my way,
Even if they’re still lacking in many ways.
If we eat together and hang around together, doesn’t that make them my people?
And one of my people was kidnapped.
The bastard who promised to make a deal with me didn’t keep his promise, and he kidnapped one of my people too.
He didn’t give me the bullets, and he kidnapped Scott.
I have absolutely no intention of tolerating such a rude situation.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Before Scott could get beaten, I fired first.
Three men collapsed to the floor,
And the enemies scattered in an instant.
I changed positions.
Bullets flew toward the spot where I had been just moments ago.
Maybe because they were arms smugglers, they seemed to carry weapons around with them.
I repeated the process of moving, firing, and moving again.
In the meantime, three more went down, and Scott, who looked a little lacking, took down two.
They said Scott was good at fighting, and it seemed that wasn’t a lie.
The back of his head, where he’d been struck, looked all right too.
What a relief.
The enemies hid themselves completely, but I kept moving and firing.
Perhaps quite startled by the unexpected situation, the enemy boss called out.
“Who are you? I’m asking who you are.”
“What are you going to do with my name when you’re going to die anyway?”
“Why would I die?”
“You kidnapped someone without even having the courage to die? That’s way too reckless.”
“Wait… did you misunderstand this as a kidnapping?”
“A misunderstanding?”
Bang.
The boss lifted his head slightly, so I fired a shot nearby.
“I’ll surrender. Don’t shoot. All of you, raise your hands too.”
The boss gave orders to his subordinates, and the boss and his men all came out with their hands raised.
Only three of them were able to walk out properly.
The boss spoke with his hands raised.
“It’s a misunderstanding. I said it’s a misunderstanding.”
“Explain.”
“We couldn’t bring the bullets with us, so we brought him here respectfully to give them to him.”
“You crack your customer over the back of the head and call that bringing him respectfully? Is that how you do things here? Pretty violent style you’ve got.”
In the meantime, Scott went over to them, searched their bodies, and restrained them with cable ties.
I don’t know what kind of place this is, but there are cable ties, chains, and plastic sheets piled up here.
Scott neatly collected the weapons, wallets, and cell phones he found on them.
He made the bastards kneel.
Seeing Scott handle things on his own so well made me proud.
It really was worth teaching him.
“It’s true!! The bullets were too heavy, so we couldn’t bring them. That’s why I told them to bring him here politely, but I think the boys misunderstood and made a mistake. I’m sorry.”
Bang.
The bullet grazed the boss’s thigh.
The boss’s scream rang out.
“Aaaaaaagh!!”
“That just now was way too cowardly. People can make mistakes, but pushing the responsibility onto your subordinates? That’s too pathetic.”
“It hurts!!!”
“You won’t die. It just grazed you. And Scott, once you’ve tied all those guys up, stop the bleeding on the ones who got shot. We should keep them alive.”
“Yes, Boss.”
“Then shall we have another little talk? So you brought him here to give him the bullets? Where are the bullets?”
“W-well, that’s…”
“This is a much bigger mess than I thought. What should I do about this?”
“No. They really exist. Not here, but in the real warehouse.”
“Tell me honestly. What were you planning to do here?”
“We were just going to give you the bullets…”
Bang.
The bullet grazed his other thigh and passed by.
“Aaagh!!”
“I do like conversations, but I really hate excuses. You never know. If you speak honestly, I might let you live.”
“Really? You’ll let me live?”
“That depends on your answer.”
“We were just going to scare him a little and get some ransom money. That’s all. Though it failed because you cowardly attacked us from behind.”
It was a lie.
It just felt like a lie.
It seemed like there was another purpose, but he wouldn’t say it.
He kept making absurd excuses.
Well, playing along wasn’t bad either.
“The bullets really exist?”
“They do.”
“Lead the way. Let’s go.”
At my words, the boss put on an arrogant expression.
“I don’t think I have any reason to tell you where it is.”
“Fine. Then you can die. It’s not like you’re the only one who knows where the warehouse is. I’ll kill you and take one of the guys here who knows. Anyone know the warehouse location?”
“I know it.”
“I know it too. I’ll guide you.”
Even so, there was ease in the boss’s expression.
“You can’t open the door without me. It opens with iris recognition. The place is made of special steel, so you’ll never be able to open it.”
“Doesn’t matter. I can just gouge your eyes out.”
“What?”
“You set up biometric recognition without even thinking that far? If it’s fingerprint recognition, you cut off the finger. If it’s iris recognition, you gouge out the eye. So you don’t have to worry about that. Then you have nothing left to say, right? Well then, farewell.”
“No, wait, why is the conversation going this way? I made a little mistake. I’ll apologize. I just have to give you the bullets, right? Then it’s over, isn’t it?”
“That’s not it.”
“What’s not?”
“I tried to kill you. You didn’t die, did you? Then it’s fine, right? It’s the same thing as that. The accounts don’t balance like this.”
“Then what do you want to do?”
“Let’s talk about that at the warehouse. About what we need to do to make the accounts balance.”
This time, I put on a sinister smile.
.
.
.
The warehouse wasn’t far.
After about five minutes by car, the warehouse appeared.
We left the bastards tied up,
And Scott and I moved together.
I was worried they might report us to the police if we left them alone,
So I had planned to leave Scott behind and move alone.
But Scott said it was fine, that we could go together.
He said they absolutely wouldn’t be able to report us.
When I asked why, he told me not to worry.
Scott said he had put all their phones, wallets, and weapons into a bag.
So they had no means of contacting anyone.
And if the police came, he said we’d assume they were the ones who reported us, then find every person whose ID was here and kill them.
He said we’d kill everyone living in those houses.
He had said something in Tagalog earlier, and I guess that was it.
He learns quickly.
Now he’s even getting pretty good at threatening people.
Even I was a little scared.
We arrived at the warehouse and opened the door.
There was no iris recognition or anything like that.
There was only a cheap lock of the kind you could see anywhere.
Was that bullshit? I thought.
But when we opened the door and went in, a heavy silver door appeared.
It really was special steel.
Beside the door was a keypad for entering an iris scan and a password.
The boss entered the password, did the iris scan, and spoke.
“Jericho Padilla.”
That son of a bitch.
Apparently there was voice recognition too.
At any rate, every word out of his mouth was a lie.
I couldn’t trust him.
Clunk.
The red light above the door turned green, and the door opened.
“There. Go in.”
The man gestured for me to enter.
But what was this?
This ominous feeling.
A bastard who deceived me and lied at every turn was telling me to go in first?
There was definitely something.
When I lightly pulled the boss beside me toward me, I felt him tense up and resist.
This was one hundred percent.
I dragged the boss by force and shoved him straight into the warehouse.
Perhaps because the boss hadn’t expected my actions,
He couldn’t resist and rolled right into the warehouse.
And then came the gunfire.
Tatatatatatang.
What the hell.
Why was there gunfire?
Startled, I looked inside the warehouse.
The warehouse floor was soaked with blood, and the boss lay collapsed in the middle of it.
It seemed the warehouse security system had activated.
That bastard had only opened the door and hadn’t disabled the security system.
No wonder it was suspicious that he told us to go in first. There was a reason for it.
But still, no matter how much of a security system it was, guns?
I thought something like a net would shoot out, so I was shocked.
Isn’t this seriously too much?
The boss lay there bleeding.
I did want to save him, but what if I went in to save that bastard and got shot?
I hated that even more.
“Hey! How do I disable this? Huh? I have to disable it to save you.”
“Fifty-four… three… nine… eight… seven…”
I immediately entered 543987 into the keypad.
The screen blinked once, but nothing in particular changed.
That made me even more uneasy.
I had entered the password, but I couldn’t readily bring myself to go in.
That bastard had lied far too much.
I was worried this might be a lie too.
I was afraid that the moment I entered the warehouse, guns would start firing wildly at me.
But I couldn’t just leave him like that either.
Also, I was extremely curious about what was inside the warehouse.
“Hey, I pressed the number, but there’s no response. Is it okay?”
“Hey. Answer me.”
“Hey!!! Hey!!!!”
But no sound came from inside the warehouse.
Is he dead?
Even if I wanted to check, I couldn’t go in.
I don’t have enough lives to test mine here.
As a desperate measure, I found something like a stick outside, took off some clothing, hung it on the stick, and waved it around.
There was no response.
It seemed like a motion sensor,
And since it didn’t react to the clothing, the security system seemed to have stopped, but I was still uneasy.
As I kept waving the stick, Scott stepped forward.
“I’ll go in.”
“Why would you go in?”
“Shouldn’t someone go in and check?”
“That’s why I’m asking, why should that someone be you?”
“Because there’s only you and me here, Boss. And you saved me earlier, didn’t you?”
“I hired you to work, not to risk your life. And a boss is supposed to protect his employee. That way, he can work him even harder. So don’t get in my way and get lost.”
I couldn’t bring myself to tell Scott to go in.
In my heart, I was grateful, but that didn’t mean I could push Scott forward.
I threw the stick aside roughly, then swished my hand toward the inside of the warehouse.
Faster than anyone, different from the rest, I waved it around.
There was no response.
Was the security system really turned off?
I had to go in, but I was scared.
When I looked outside the warehouse, I saw something like an iron plate left over from construction,
So I put it over myself and carefully, slowly entered the warehouse.
The iron plate was heavy and cumbersome, but I couldn’t put it down.
If a gun fired, of course a plate like this would be pierced, but its power would be weakened a lot.
Carefully, carefully, I hid my body behind the iron plate and moved.
The security system seemed to be off.
I had made it halfway into the warehouse, but no gunfire came.
Even so, I couldn’t put the iron plate down.
I went to the boss’s side, but he was already dead.
He was no longer breathing.
I had suspected it from the moment he stopped answering earlier, but confirming it made me feel bad.
I had tried to save him.
Honestly, I hadn’t intended to kill him.
Why did he have to get so greedy?
Greed is instinct.
Instinct overcomes reason.
That is simply unfortunate.
When no guns fired no matter how much I moved, I decided the security system had been disabled and threw away the heavy iron plate.
And then the scene came into view.
“Oh, fuck. What is this?”
The inside of the warehouse was filled entirely with weapons.
Scott, who came into the warehouse after I put down the iron plate, was shocked as well.
There were pistols, submachine guns, assault rifles, sniper rifles, even mortars.
C4 explosives and grenades, mines and ammunition boxes.
Suppressors, scopes, dot sights, night vision goggles, thermal imaging equipment, body armor, tactical vests too.
I was from the military myself, but this was better and more diverse than the army’s firearms.
There were everything from the latest drones to old-fashioned weapons.
Military nerds would seriously go insane if they came here.
As I looked at the enormous quantity of weapons, a question suddenly occurred to me.
By the way, what am I supposed to do?
Taking only the twenty thousand bullets as promised and leaving was not an option.
No matter how good I am at keeping promises, this wasn’t it.
We had gone through a crisis where we almost died, so we had to be compensated for that.
Since the situation had changed, the terms should change too.
I wondered what among all these weapons I should take.
It wasn’t like I could put all of it into my inventory anyway.
I had to choose and take only what I needed, but leaving the rest behind felt like such a waste.
I wanted to take everything.
Then one thought came to mind.
“Scott, go back to that warehouse from earlier and bring the three who surrendered last.”
“Yes.”
Scott picked up a pistol and left for the abandoned factory.
I remained in the warehouse, looking at the enormous amount of weapons spread out before me, and quickly calculated what to do.
But why did I keep smiling?