Our customer asked whether he could buy just one handgun.
Of course, sir, absolutely.
That will be 1.5 million won.
Magazines and bullets are sold separately.
VAT is included.
Payment is cash only.
Thank you. Have a good day.
Please visit us again.
The end.
That’s all I have to do.
Clean and simple.
But I can’t.
What is this, why am I so curious?
Why is he trying to buy a gun?
And why is he trying to buy just one? I’m dying to know.
According to Dennis, an arms dealer’s main customers are gangs and rebels.
They don’t buy guns one at a time.
If they were the kind of guys who sold guns one at a time, they wouldn’t have an arsenal like that in the first place.
So that makes me even more curious.
I’m dying to hear the story of a person who buys only one gun.
I think I understand how Jericho felt.
Jericho was so curious about why we wanted to buy twenty thousand bullets that he was willing to kidnap us to find out.
All he had to do was hand over the bullets and take the money, but he couldn’t.
In the end, Jericho couldn’t hold back his curiosity, kidnapped Scott, and got taken out in one hit.
Curiosity invites death.
And yet you can’t quit it.
Just like the gamblers who come to our casino every day can’t quit gambling.
If it were a large-scale deal, I’d have to go through Dennis,
but for a single handgun, there’s no reason I can’t handle it myself.
I already have plenty of guns in my inventory.
[Is there a specific model you want? We’ve got a pretty decent selection. If there’s something you want, I’ll try to match it as closely as possible.]
- Nothing like that. Just something easy to use.
[Okay.]
I should have stopped there, but I went and added something unnecessary.
I guess I’m the kind of guy whose reason can’t beat his instincts either.
Seeing as I’m crawling straight into my own grave.
[I’d recommend a Glock 19 or a Smith & Wesson Shield. Which one do you like?]
- Anything decent is fine.
[The Glock 19 is the global standard, and the Smith & Wesson Shield is small, so it’s good for concealment or carry.]
- Then I’ll take the Smith & Wesson Shield.
[Will two magazines and about a hundred rounds be enough?]
- Plenty.
[Send the payment in coin, and I’ll leave it at Vicente Palace. Come pick it up. What’s your name?]
- You need a name just to buy a gun?
[No, I need a name to leave it under.]
- John Doe
[Got it. I’ll leave it under that name, so make sure you pick it up.]
.
.
.
A few days later.
After finishing work, I was sitting in the hotel lobby, drinking a cup of coffee.
Changing my room to a suite had changed my life a little.
For one thing, I spent less time on the road.
The suite had two bedrooms and one living room,
and it was nice because I could hold simple meetings in the living room.
As soon as I stepped out into the living room, I could have a meeting.
Whenever necessary, I could call in whoever I needed and give orders on the spot.
In movies, Mexican mafiosos are always wandering around in shower robes, meeting people, holding meetings, and all that. Now I finally understand why.
Not that I go around wearing a shower robe.
I’m just saying.
Changing the resort to all-inclusive also helped a lot.
I could eat whenever I wanted.
Ah, of course, I eat through room service.
It’s not free either.
I charge all of it.
I charge more than what I actually eat.
The lodging fee, the room service, the use of auxiliary facilities—I charge it all.
At full price, with no discounts whatsoever.
I even add a pool usage fee.
Why am I paying when I bought the place?
Why should only I pay for something hotel guests use for free?
Of course, I don’t actually pay.
From that point on, it becomes the realm of taxes.
To put it simply, it’s a kind of trick to process things as expenses.
Everything I sleep in, eat, and use can be processed as expenses.
Once processed as expenses, they become costs, proof that we spent money.
To summarize,
“We did make money, but we spent this much, so we don’t have any. Please reduce our taxes.” That’s what it is.
The money I toss to my subordinates in cash doesn’t leave proof.
So when I can spend money legally like this, I need to spend it generously.
I’m suddenly grateful to Sandro.
Despite how he looks, he’s surprisingly meticulous about tax evasion.
Or should I call it tax saving?
.
.
.
Having a cup of coffee in the lobby before going up to the suite became one of my pleasures.
I’m not interested in coffee.
I just enjoy secretly listening to what people say there.
They say bragging about your children makes you a fool, right?
Then I’m definitely a fool.
I enjoy opening my ears wide and listening to people talk about Emerald Canyon and Lumina Lake.
It makes me happy to hear people talk about how blissful the tour was, how incredible it was.
Emerald Canyon and Lumina Lake aren’t my children,
but whenever people praise them, I feel good for no reason.
I also made sure to remember any complaints or inconveniences they had during the tour.
It gave me ideas, and it was a very useful time.
That was why I liked sitting in the hotel lobby, eavesdropping on people’s conversations.
As I sat there drinking coffee and stealing bits of conversation, I glanced at the table in front of me,
and a young woman was drawing something intently.
Ssk, ssk, ssk.
Every time the pencil moved, new lines appeared and disappeared again and again.
It was so fascinating that I kept watching.
For people like me, whose artistic sense is dull, even just watching someone draw like that is amazing.
Everyone who draws looks like Bob Ross to me.
The sight of lines that seemed to mean nothing gathering together to create a picture was astonishing.
It felt as though a new world was being born.
I watched blankly as that new world came into existence.
When the woman’s hand stopped, Emerald Canyon had been newly born there.
It felt strange.
Emerald Canyon was mystical, noble, and felt like something that would exist in a fantasy world,
but this was round and cute.
It looked as though it belonged in a fairy tale.
When I stared at it in a daze, the woman looked at me and spoke.
“Is there a problem?”
“I’m sorry, the painting is so beautiful, I couldn’t stop looking.”
“Um... are you Korean?”
“Yes.”
“That’s a relief. My English isn’t very good, so I had no idea what to say.”
“I was just looking because your drawing was so pretty. I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”
“No, it’s nice if someone likes my drawings.”
“I’m sorry, but may I take a closer look?”
The woman hesitated, then handed me the tablet.
Seen from the front, the picture was even more charming.
Cute.
I wanted to touch it.
I wanted to have it.
“You must have majored in art.”
“Yes. I did major in it, but...”
She swallowed her words.
It seemed like there was some story behind it, but I didn’t ask.
That was her business, not mine.
Everyone has their own circumstances.
“By any chance, do you have any other drawings besides this one?”
“They aren’t proper ones, but I do have some rough sketches.”
“I’d still like to see them. Would that be all right?”
When she operated the tablet, several more drawings appeared.
Not only Emerald Canyon, but turtles, whale sharks, Lumina Lake, the Chocolate Hills, and tarsiers were all drawn in a round, soft style.
She had probably gone on the tour and drawn the scenes that left an impression on her.
But the art style was cute.
I wanted to keep it near me.
I wanted to keep it beside me, touch it, and look at it.
“Do you have any thoughts of selling these drawings?”
“Pardon?”
“I’m asking if you’d sell these drawings. I want to make merchandise out of them. Would that be possible?”
*******
For Im Yuna, this trip was a very adventurous one.
It was something like a deviation from her normal life.
Im Yuna was a good person.
She had never once caused trouble for her parents.
She was kind to her friends too.
Ever since she was little, Im Yuna had liked drawing, and with her parents’ support, she entered art school.
A prestigious university, at that.
She had thought everything would be solved once she got in, but the problems began then.
She majored in fine art, but the more she learned, the more she felt fine art alone was not enough.
There was too great a gap from reality.
So she double-majored in visual design.
She thought that much would be necessary for her to get a job after graduation.
But that was Im Yuna’s misconception.
Although she majored in fine art and visual design, the threshold of employment was too high.
Every day, before that threshold, Im Yuna grew smaller.
Her parents comforted her, saying it was all right, that people simply hadn’t recognized her talent yet, but it did not give her any strength.
While browsing the internet to look for job information, she came across a post.
By some stroke of luck, I went twice.
Once, I booked Candy Tour and departed from Seoul,
and once, I succeeded in booking on-site in Bohol, Philippines, and went straight from there.
I’ll compare the two for you, so listen carefully.
To summarize for busy people: if you can, absolutely go with the one departing from Seoul.
That’s the one where you come out ahead.
What? You say it’s hard to book?
You think it’s easy on-site in Bohol?
It’s even harder there.
I’ll call the one departing from Seoul the Seoul Tour.
Anyway, only Koreans book the Seoul Tour,
but people from all over the world book the on-site tickets in Bohol.
Getting a reservation is seriously hellish.
I barely got a cancellation ticket myself.
So don’t do something crazy like setting off with the vain hope that, “If I go to Bohol, surely I’ll be able to go somehow?”
Absolutely not.
Anyway.
I know the Seoul Tour is insanely hard to book too.
I also understand why it makes no sense to burn two million won per person on Southeast Asia.
Even so, let me tell you why you should book the Seoul Tour.
First, you don’t fly on a budget airline.
And you also get to stay at the six-star Vicente Palace.
Vicente Palace is all-inclusive, so once you check in, they provide not only three meals a day but also unlimited alcohol and drinks.
Right there, the cost of meals disappears.
Well, you can go out to eat for the mood if you want, but it absolutely cannot match the quality of Vicente Palace.
The best restaurant in Bohol is Vicente Palace.
I guarantee it.
And the price includes all the tours.
Not only the Emerald Canyon tour, but also the tours to see whales and turtles.
Even if you only try to go on the Emerald Canyon and Lumina Lake tour in Bohol, it costs 400,000 won,
but here, the marine tour is included too, so the cost-effectiveness is out of this world.
If you add it all up later, it’s much cheaper.
And you should book the Seoul Tour for the marine tour alone.
When you go on the marine tour, there are rows of ordinary little puttering boats, and among them, there’s one yacht standing out like a crane among chickens. That’s the private yacht for Candy Tour guests.
While all of you are taking photos on puttering boats, only the kids who booked the Seoul Tour get to take photos on the yacht.
When you look at the photos later, the look is completely different.
It was my first time riding a yacht too.
One massage is included by default during the tour.
You get that at the hotel too.
And the decisive thing is the shopping.
This part is a little ambiguous.
The package says no-shopping.
But there is shopping anyway.
If you’re worried they’ll pressure you for not buying anything, you don’t have to.
The guide doesn’t care at all.
They don’t even come into the shop.
The problem is that the quality is way too good for the price.
Apparently, it was a shop only they used, but customers kept asking for it, so now they stop by as a service.
It’s not the kind of shopping shop you know.
It’s cheaper than a mart, has a lot of variety, lots of tourist goods, and the quality is good too.
I was so satisfied with the trip that I bought one latex pad, thinking I’d help them out.
I regret it.
I should’ve bought about five, but I was stingy and bought only one.
That’s how weak I am.
Honestly, even if they took out everything else and only brought me shopping, I’d be willing to spend two million won.
I’m serious.
So if you’re going to Bohol and you’re going to see Emerald Canyon, go with the Seoul Tour no matter what if you can.
I think that’s the right choice.
The Seoul Tour has “luxury” attached to the product name, and it really is luxury.
It’s not luxury in name only; it genuinely makes your heart swell.
When everyone else is riding puttering boats and you show up on a yacht, you really feel like you’ve become somebody.
Not just the yacht, but the vehicles you ride, the accommodations, and the food too.
You really feel treated well.
On top of that, the guides take good care of you.
They took such good care of me, I thought I was eight years old.
Paying 2 million won all at once might feel like a burden, but if you book tours locally, eat meals, and do this and that, you could end up spending over 2 million anyway.
So even if you have to wait a bit, definitely go with the Seoul tour.
I mean that sincerely.
- You said exactly what I wanted to say. It was a truly satisfying trip. It was a trip worth every bit of the 2 million won.
- At first, I cursed like crazy too when I heard it was 2 million for the Philippines, but after actually going, I realized 2 million was really cheap.
- I want to go too. I want to pay 2 million and go, but reservations never open up.
ㄴ I asked Gosen, and they said they don’t take reservations unless the tour schedule is completely finalized. So I said we’d be fine even if one or two tours were left out. As long as we could go to Emerald Canyon and Lumina Lake. The accommodations could be a little shabby too. But they still said no.
- Speaking as someone who’s been there, just go. Definitely go. You absolutely won’t regret it.
.
.
.
After carefully reading through even the reviews, Im Yuna made her decision.
She would book the Emerald Tour.
It was an extremely difficult tour to reserve, but Im Yuna was lucky enough to get a booking.
A cancellation had opened up, and on top of that, she was traveling solo.
Anywhere you go, booking for one person is the easiest.
As the day of the trip drew near, she grew excited.
Bohol had everything Im Yuna liked.
Turtles, whale sharks, tarsiers. Snorkeling.
She wanted to see Emerald Canyon and Lumina Lake too, but she was a little worried.
Everyone kept saying they were amazing, so she tried not to get her hopes up too much, afraid that pointless expectations might end up working against her.
She forced herself to hold back.
But when she actually saw Emerald Canyon with her own eyes, and Lumina Lake, they were more than enough to shake up everything Im Yuna had considered common sense until now.
She felt like she understood why everyone had praised them in one voice.
Now, it was certain that Im Yuna would become one of those people who praised them unconditionally too.
Even after the tour ended, the lingering feeling wouldn’t fade, so she sat in the hotel lobby, pouring out the afterimages that had settled in her mind.
Even if she just sat there quietly, someone came over to ask whether she wanted beer or a drink.
She asked for a glass of juice.
It was nothing special, but she felt genuinely grateful for it.
She had been drawing for quite a while when, feeling something strange, she looked behind her and saw a handsome man staring at her.
Huh? Does he like me?
Is my face the type that works in the Philippines?
Is the flirtation that never went anywhere in Korea finally going to happen here?
That was what she thought.
“Do you have any thoughts of selling this drawing? I’d like to make it into merchandise. Would that be possible?”