Part 12
It was a statement he had spat out with extreme effort.
He could kill him like this, but there was one more thing Jonghyeon needed to know.
The true identity of the envelope.
And piecing together everything Black Dave had said and done until now, there was one thing he could infer.
‘A martial arts secret manual.’
Black Dave was still struggling to break free from the shadows.
Jonghyeon approached him and aimed the Sotae-do at his neck.
‘In a way, it was a stroke of luck that I broke the lamp above.’
If he hadn’t broken the large lamp above, this much shadow would never have been created.
Otherwise, it would have been difficult to subdue Black Dave whether he awakened or went berserk.
Black Dave was the strongest opponent Jonghyeon had ever faced.
“I want to know about that envelope. But even if you don’t go out of your way to tell me, I’ll find out eventually. If you talk, well, a way for you to survive might just appear.”
At Jonghyeon’s curt words, Black Dave dropped his head as if he had nothing left to say.
It was a gesture asking to be killed.
‘A pity.’
He wanted to dig deeper, but Jonghyeon’s body was at its limit.
With his stomach pierced and bleeding wounds all over his body, the fact that he was even alive was a miracle in itself.
His vision, which had steadied, blurred once more as his tension faded.
Sreok—!
Jonghyeon cut off Black Dave’s head just like that and quickly pressed the first button on his watch to open a portal.
There might be hidden executives or guild members, and he had no idea when the police might burst in.
Therefore, Jonghyeon decided it was better to take refuge than to remain at the scene.
With his last remaining consciousness, Jonghyeon almost crawled into the conference room, seized the envelope, and vanished into the portal.
“Kuk! Keuk…”
Jonghyeon couldn’t even speak properly.
He had safely hidden his body inside the portal, but treating his serious injuries within three days was nearly impossible, and he had no medical tools.
As he stripped off his clothes and examined his wounds, one thing caught his eye.
Something had slightly rolled out through a gap in his clothes pocket.
It was a potion.
Jonghyeon hadn’t had the presence of mind to think of it in the urgent situation, but the moment he saw the potion, he gulped it down without hesitation.
“Gulp.”
The potion, barely three mouthfuls, flowed quickly down Jonghyeon’s esophagus.
Then, light began bursting from his entire body.
“Ooh.”
Jonghyeon exclaimed in admiration at the rapid changes in his body.
His hoarse voice was completely healed.
The wounds all over his body disappeared without a trace.
His pierced stomach was mended as well.
Jonghyeon found it quite amazing to watch his own flesh regenerate.
At the same time, the now-conscious Jonghyeon wanted to know more about the envelope, but a sudden wave of fatigue crashed over him, and he fell asleep just like that.
★ ★ ★
“Can you make the exterior of this look like a magical transaction contract?”
The Halem Family’s Magic Association.
Most of its members were unremarkable magicians who had graduated from the Academy.
There were many magic associations in the world, but the Halem Family was somewhat special even among them.
Because it was a place where quite well-known figures gathered, however reluctantly.
The bearded man sitting at a desk with a nameplate engraved with “Phillips” looked over the document Jonghyeon had presented.
From his dark beard and face, he appeared to be a man in his forties.
Phillips looked younger than one might expect.
“There are traces of magic having already touched this once?”
Phillips was, for all intents and purposes, the head of the Magic Association.
One could only meet him if there was an enormous sum to offer.
He looked young, but his abilities alone were unquestionable.
Perhaps that was why he immediately recognized the document Jonghyeon had presented.
“How is that possible?”
Phillips furrowed his brow.
“Its magic has been forcibly broken. In this case, I’ll have to dispel the previous magic, and on top of that apply new magic, hm…”
In the end, it was a matter of money.
Since he wasn’t saying it was impossible.
When leaving Black Dave’s guild, Jonghyeon had acquired some profit.
The guild’s safe.
Inside were various gold ingots and funds, and Jonghyeon had stolen them all.
‘Well… consider it payment for the potion.’
“Don’t worry about the money. Would around twenty thousand dollars suffice?”
At Jonghyeon’s question, which showed he knew the exact market price, Phillips licked his lips.
Truthfully, the Magic Association didn’t inflate prices too much, but even so, the exact market price was usually a sensitive matter.
“Very well. Let’s do that.”
But perhaps because it wasn’t a losing business, Phillips immediately began bringing out materials the moment he finished speaking.
“How long will it take?”
“Two days will suffice.”
Two days.
Thinking that would be enough, Jonghyeon returned to his lodgings.
Jonghyeon thought back to the day he had left Black Dave’s guild.
Three days ago.
Jonghyeon had woken up at the dungeon entrance, gone outside, and immediately robbed Black Dave’s guild safe.
The police arrived in the middle of the robbery, startling him quite a bit, but Jonghyeon quickly escaped through an air vent.
Then he found new lodgings and made a call to his client.
“Chairman Lee, it’s me.”
“What brings you to call? To think you’d actually call. Did something go wrong with the job?”
Other than when something went wrong with a job, Jonghyeon never called, so the chairman never had reason to take his calls.
Thus, Chairman Lee seemed quite surprised.
“No. The auction was successful.”
“If that’s the case, then?”
“There was just a bit of trouble on the way back.”
“Is that so? What kind of trouble? If it’s something I can help with, I’ll help however I can.”
Actually, there was no trouble.
It was merely an excuse to buy time to restore things to their original state before anyone noticed the document.
“It’s not that. I drank heavily all day here… and drug components were detected in my system.”
“Drugs?”
“Yes. Turns out the bar had spiked their alcohol with drugs. So I’m on my way back after being interrogated.”
None of that actually happened.
Jonghyeon had merely orchestrated the entire incident.
He had deliberately added a tiny amount of narcotics to the alcohol.
Then he went to the airport and deliberately got caught in the screening, after which he reported the bar.
The bar owners, knowing nothing, protested their innocence and appealed that no such thing had happened, but—
as a professional of covert operations and secrecy, Jonghyeon had already mixed drugs into the bar’s alcohol barrels in advance.
“Hm, so that’s what happened. You don’t do drugs, do you?”
Jonghyeon didn’t let his guard down at Chairman Lee’s half-joking, smiling words.
Since his opponent was a major player, even the slightest awkwardness would give him away.
“Of course not. However, until the drug components detected in that bar clear out of my system, I’ve been placed under a travel ban.”
“I see what you mean. Then when will you come to Korea?”
“It won’t be long. I’ll be back within the week.”
“Very well. Hang in there a little longer.”
After wrapping up the call, Jonghyeon looked around for new lodgings.
As soon as Jonghyeon found lodgings, he made a copy of the secret manual.
He spent about a day just deciphering the Chinese characters.
And another half day just transcribing the deciphered text.
And he had just entrusted the original to the Magic Association.
“By the way, this… is too difficult.”
Once deciphered, it was indeed a martial arts secret manual.
It even contained detailed information on the origins of the martial art, how to learn it, and advanced sword stances.
To Jonghyeon, who had never properly learned martial arts, it was tremendous.
For starters, it gradually detailed the methods of building internal energy.
But before building internal energy, he had to understand the origins of the martial art, and even with Jonghyeon’s extraordinary mind, it was difficult to grasp in one go.
[This martial art belongs to Sword God Liuhuang of Tianyuan Xindi. The method of forging the internal energy of the Tianyuan Xinfa is…]
“It’s just as difficult to understand no matter how many times I read it.”
In truth, Jonghyeon—whose body was already filled with his own unique energy—found it even more so.
If a vessel is empty, it’s easy to fill it with what you wish to pursue, but Jonghyeon worried whether it would work to mix something else into a vessel already half-full.
‘But why is Chairman Lee after this secret manual?’
It was strange enough to be trading such an unparalleled secret manual on the black market, but given Chairman Lee’s age, the chances of him learning the sword now were close to zero.
‘I don’t know.’
Jonghyeon spent the day repeatedly reading the secret manual and setting it down.
★ ★ ★
The moment Jonghyeon arrived in Korea, he got in his car and headed straight for Chairman Lee’s mansion.
As he drove, Jonghyeon grew a bit bored, and old memories began to surface.
Chairman Lee was the founder of V Group, which could be considered the largest among Korea’s successful corporations.
V Group started in construction and expanded its scale through various businesses; when dungeons appeared around the world, it invested in magic academies and martial arts schools, achieving tremendous results.
His encounter with Jonghyeon had been quite a coincidence.
At the time, Jonghyeon was sixteen.
It was the period when he had reached the pinnacle of pickpocketing.
And Chairman Lee was from before V Company had a group. In other words, before it rose to the ranks of a major corporation, he was a president struggling to save his company.
V Company had been on the verge of bankruptcy before Chairman Lee took over, and began to slowly recover after he took charge.
And Chairman Lee conducted business using public transportation without the usual car and secretary.
Saying he had to save even a little.
That day too, Chairman Lee was busy visiting clients and trying to board a bus.
Tuk—
“Excuse me.”
He had almost fallen after colliding with a man, but Chairman Lee said he was fine and boarded the bus.
Of course, the man he bumped into was Jonghyeon, and in his hand was Chairman Lee’s wallet.
“What the.”
Chairman Lee’s wallet contained only a single five-thousand-won bill and two thousand-won bills in cash.
“He was wearing quite expensive clothes.”
Chairman Lee had a separate set of clothes that he rented only when visiting clients.
He invested almost all his profits into the company, and Chairman Lee—who was trying to save his company—considered even an expensive suit a luxury and usually rented them instead.
The day after his wallet was picked, Jonghyeon and Chairman Lee happened to run into each other in the same alley.
The alley was next to a construction site where Chairman Lee was trying to push through lobbying, and Jonghyeon happened to be passing by.
“Hey. Did you think you’d be something just because you’re a president? Why did you come and piss all over something our company had already claimed!”
Entangled in the construction’s completion and investment relations, Chairman Lee was on the verge of being beaten up, and Jonghyeon tried to ignore it and pass by.
Naturally, Jonghyeon was fundamentally somewhat lacking in benevolence and righteousness.
Especially since he had been living as a pickpocket, his so-called eighth-grader syndrome had worsened, and he couldn’t see anyone but himself.
“I say, you there!”
Jonghyeon didn’t realize at first that he was being called.
But when Chairman Lee called out, the other hired thugs looked at Jonghyeon too.
“Who are you? You know this gentleman?”
Only then did Jonghyeon realize they were talking about him and looked over.
He shook his head.
That was Jonghyeon’s answer.
Jonghyeon started walking again.
No, he tried to.
But in Korea, courtesy was unusually highly valued.
“Hey! If someone asks you a question, you gotta answer, you little brat!”
The hired thug must have really disliked Jonghyeon, who only shook his head.
The hired thug ran up and grabbed Jonghyeon by the scruff of his neck.
“Let go.”
One word from Jonghyeon.
The hired thug snorted as if baffled and made as if to hit him.
A short while later.
“Attention.”
“Attennn-tion—”
The hired thugs, who had been beaten by Jonghyeon so brutally they would have rather died, were right there in that alley receiving disciplinary drills.
“Repeat after me. Do not pick fights with passersby!”
“We do not pick fights with passersbyyy—”
“Good. Live like that from now on. I’m leaving.”
Jonghyeon, in the throes of his eighth-grader syndrome, was a more frightening person than one might think.
Jonghyeon was moving to leave with the thought that this should be enough.
Chairman Lee followed behind him.
Jonghyeon internally felt guilty about the wallet he had taken the day before and turned to Chairman Lee to say something.
“Mister. It’s true that I ended up saving you, but…”
“If you managed to eat using yesterday’s wallet, you should at least pay for the meal.”
Chairman Lee cut off Jonghyeon’s words and spoke as if it were obvious.
“You knew I took it?”
Chairman Lee smiled awkwardly, seemed to think deeply for a moment, then suddenly opened his mouth.
“Haha. Well, it doesn’t matter now either way. More importantly, would you like to work with me?”
By the time he had thought this far, Jonghyeon had arrived in front of the chairman’s house.