Episode 61
After escorting Mandy and Gim Sang-sik to their quarters, Cha Dong-seok stepped outside.
There had been no doubt about the two of them identities.
Gim Sang-sik’s access card had been the deciding factor.
The problem was Jeon.
How to treat an Awakened from the slums was entirely up to him.
“They’ve already broken him in, haven’t they?”
They had worked together a long time.
They knew exactly what Cha Dong-seok wanted with just a glance.
They would have already tempered Jeon properly.
It wasn’t as if he held any particular grudge against Jeon.
This sort of thing happened all the time in Neo Seoul.
There was a widespread belief that Awakened from the slums had to be treated harshly and have their spirits broken.
Even if this caused problems, those above wouldn’t pursue the matter.
He arrived in front of the shabby lodging where Jeon had been taken.
But it was strangely quiet.
“Don’t tell me those bastards killed him?”
With an anxious heart, Cha Dong-seok flung the door open.
The moment he saw the scene inside the lodging, Cha Dong-seok doubted his own eyes. An unbelievable sight was unfolding before him.
“Ghuk! Captain.”
“Guh!”
All of his subordinates were collapsed on the floor, groaning.
Their arms and legs were bent in grotesque directions as they crawled across the ground.
There, in the very center of it all, was Jeon.
Jeon sat in a chair, looking at Cha Dong-seok.
“Welcome.”
“What the hell? Why are they…?”
Startled, Cha Dong-seok drew his sword.
Shhrrk!
Jeon rose from the chair and approached Cha Dong-seok.
Cha Dong-seok pointed his sword at Jeon’s neck.
“Did you do this to them?”
“They tried to look at another person’s rank insignia without permission.”
“You did this to them for that? You son of a bitch…”
“If you swing that sword, your wrist won’t come out unscathed either.”
“Do you really think you can still get into Neo Seoul after this?”
“It doesn’t matter as long as I don’t go inside Neo Seoul. I’m staying in the slums anyway.”
“Tch!”
Cha Dong-seok clenched his teeth.
Neo Seoul and the slums were adjacent, but they were practically separate districts.
For the most part, Neo Seoul didn’t intervene in the slums’ affairs.
Intervening only created more headaches, so they granted a certain degree of autonomy.
Jeon stepped right up to Cha Dong-seok’s face.
They were close enough to feel each other’s breath, so Cha Dong-seok could see Jeon’s eyes.
Deep, black eyes that felt peculiarly dry.
In that instant, Cha Dong-seok felt a chill run down his spine.
Just meeting Jeon’s gaze made his mind spin, as if his soul were plummeting into an abyss.
He had never felt this way before.
He hadn’t even felt this from high-ranking Awakened in Neo Seoul.
Though he was only D-Rank, he was a veteran who had been through all kinds of hell.
Realizing immediately that things had gone wrong, he quickly changed his posture.
“I’m sorry. Why didn’t you say you were a high-ranking Awakened?”
“Mandy and Mr. Gim Sang-sik vouched for me. Have you forgotten already?”
“That’s… I apologize.”
When it came time to bow, one had to bow properly.
Cha Dong-seok stopped making excuses and apologized sincerely.
His subordinates weren’t particularly low-level either.
They were all either D-Rank or E-Rank Awakened.
Yet not one of them had been able to harm Jeon and had been crushed instead.
If him stepping in wouldn’t change the situation, it was best to bury everything here and back down.
Fortunately, Jeon didn’t intend to escalate matters further either.
“Then we don’t have a problem, do we?”
“What problem was there?”
“That’s a relief. I’m glad you’re someone who understands reason.”
“We’ll move you to different quarters.”
“No. This is good enough.”
“But still…”
“I’d like to be alone now.”
“Understood. Then please rest well.”
Cha Dong-seok bowed his head deeply to Jeon, then shouted at his subordinates.
“Hey, you bastards! Get up already! Everyone, up!”
“Guh!”
“Ungh!”
The subordinates struggled to their feet.
Cha Dong-seok left with them.
Once the presence outside faded, Jeon muttered.
“Now I can finally get some rest.”
It was a hazing he would’ve had to go through anyway.
If it could be resolved with just this, it wasn’t a bad deal for him either.
Jeon sat in the chair and looked around the lodging.
He suddenly snickered.
“It’s that place.”
It was the lodging where he had stayed when he came to the Magic Stone Mine eight years ago.
He recognized it immediately because nothing had changed.
He had slept here for one night before being dragged straight to the Magic Stone Mine, where he had fallen into a dungeon. And eight years had passed since then.
Jeon was no longer a child, nor was he going to work in the mine. Yet being here made him feel as though he had to enter the Magic Stone Mine.
“Come to think of it, wasn’t that old man here too?”
The swindler old man who charged a whopping ten sol for a single meal and robbed him of a three-hundred-sol magic stone for a mere hundred sol.
In exchange, he had received an hourglass and obtained Elxion, but the fact that Jeon had been swindled remained unchanged.
Even after all this time, he remembered the man’s face vividly.
“Didn’t he say his name was Old Man Klexi? Maybe I should pay him a visit after all this time.”
There was nothing to do inside anyway.
Jeon went outside.
Fortunately, perhaps because Cha Dong-seok had given prior notice, no one picked a fight or blocked him.
Thanks to that, Jeon was able to arrive comfortably at the area where Old Man Klexi had done business.
This place had hardly changed either.
As soon as Jeon appeared, merchants emerged from everywhere.
“Come this way, will ya.”
“Got good wares here.”
“Yer look like a greenhorn. Get yourself sorted here before ya go.”
The merchants’ eyes gleamed with greed.
They saw Jeon as a newbie and were trying to fleece him.
This sort of thing was everyday life here.
You had to keep your wits about you—if you got swept up by mistake, you’d be skinned alive, shell and all.
Just like Jeon had been in the past. But the current Jeon was no longer the clumsy greenhorn he once was.
Fwip!
Jeon rolled up his sleeve to clearly show the fist fitted with a gauntlet. The approaching merchants flinched.
Ordinary people almost never equipped themselves with gauntlets or other magical equipment.
Only Awakened wore such gear.
Which meant this young man wearing a playful smile was an Awakened.
“Ahem! Now that I think about it, I left my shop door open.”
“Oh, I left a pot on the fire and forgot.”
“Oops! My leg’s acting up.”
The merchants made excuses and returned to their shops.
At that, the merchant with the broken wrist made a betrayed expression. But this was reality.
Even dozens of ordinary people couldn’t handle a single Awakened.
If he was going to blame anyone, he had to blame his own carelessness for trying to fleece someone without knowing they were an Awakened.
“Damn it!”
His eyes were brimming with tears.
Jeon crouched down and met his gaze.
“Now, let’s settle the bill.”
“The bill? What bullshit? You broke my arm.”
“Hey! What’s with that? You’re the one who treated me like a mark first. Isn’t it a bit much to look so wronged after trying to screw over an Awakened?”
“Grrk!”
“Let’s settle this simply. One hundred sol! Just a hundred sol and I’ll forget everything that happened today.”
The money Old Man Klexi had given him while robbing him of the magic stone back then had been exactly one hundred sol.
It had been an item worth at least three hundred sol, yet he had been robbed of it for a mere hundred sol.
Without experience and nowhere to go, he had been helplessly fleeced, but the situation was different now.
Jeon smiled broadly as he looked at the merchant. But his smile placed immense pressure on the merchant.
‘Damn it! He wasn’t a mark—he was a grim reaper.’
He couldn’t complain about his grievances anywhere.
The Magic Stone Mine was a place where if you failed to fleece others, you had no right to complain when you got skinned instead.
The one who got taken was the fool.
He pulled out one hundred sol with his uninjured hand.
His hand trembled violently as he handed the money to Jeon.
He felt like he was bleeding tears from the loss. But Jeon coldly took the money.
“Thanks. With this, I won’t have to worry about money for a while. Now, is there anyone else who wants to pick a fight with me? I sure hope so.”
Jeon muttered as he pocketed the money.
The merchant shuddered at the sight of him.
‘This guy is a demon. To think he’d fleece a merchant like me…’
Leaving behind the merchant with a vacant, stunned expression, Jeon leisurely left the market area.
Quite a lot had happened since the first day he arrived at the Magic Stone Mine. Thanks to that, he was pleased he wasn’t bored.
Jeon slowly strolled through the mining city.
Most of the miners hadn’t yet come out of the tunnels, so the city was quiet. Still, quite a few people were walking the streets.
It had been a long time since he had seen so many people at once.
Jeon found a spot on the side of the street and sat down, watching the people pass by.
It wasn’t perfect, but he could really feel that he had returned to the doorstep of the civilized world.
‘Nice!’