novelraw Chapter 29 : What I Believe In Is Only (1)
Chapter 29 : What I Believe In Is Only (1)
Chapter 29: What I Believe In Is Only (1)
I moved deeper into the alley.
At the end of the backstreet, which had looked like a blood cave leading into hell, there sat a far more flamboyant world. So this was why the outside had been so deserted.
It was a sight that drew nothing but admiration. In place of the sun, red lantern houses were lined up all the way to the vanishing point of the street.
“So this is the red-light district I’d only heard about.”
“Come on, boss. You’re really going to pretend it’s your first time?”
“Today’ll be your last time here.”
“…….”
Thanks to the gang giving me proper directions, I came straight here without getting lost. They were probably hoping I might spare them.
I glanced at the back of his head and let out a snort of laughter.
‘I’d better send him off in one clean strike.’
The red-light district was packed and noisy with people. The street was only wide enough for five grown men to walk abreast, but it was so overcrowded that bodies were getting crushed.
Inside the shoddy plank buildings that barely had the form of shops, people were feverishly working up a sweat, making the buildings sway as if there’d been an earthquake. Chairs set out for waiting rocked in time with the rhythm.
♥♥! ♥! ♥♥-!
The women who came out onto the street twisted their bodies languidly, flaunting every kind of coquettish charm.
“Fuck, look at that.”
I spotted a Wudang Clan Taoist. No matter how much I rubbed my eyes, the Taiji emblem stitched onto his jangsam robe was unmistakably intact.
I’d heard of fallen monks before, but a fallen Taoist was a first. The gang hastily added an explanation.
“About thirty percent of the customers are martial world folk.”
“Why martial world people of all things?”
“They’ve got a decent amount of money, you see. You can’t even set foot in the upper-tier establishments unless you’re a high-ranking city government official or a MegaCorp executive.”
“…What a joke.”
I let out a shallow sigh.
“A Wudang Taoist goes without saying, and even bald monks come here now and then. More than half are gang members, too.”
“What about the Beggars’ Sect?”
“Hardly any. They’ve got no money. The Beggars’ Sect are about the only ones who still act like a proper orthodox sect.”
“So gangs play the role of pimps?”
“That’s right. Each shop has a different gang backing it. Ten major gangs. Ah—well, ours got wiped out. So the remaining nine major gangs split up the management.”
Each layer had its own jurisdiction: the upper tier was run by the city government, the lower tier by martial forces, and the very bottom by the gang alliance.
MegaCorps were the exception.
They had privatized the entire system and laws of Lake City. In other words, they were outside the standard framework.
Anyway.
At least in this place, the influence of the gang alliance was no less than that of the powers above them.
The very person at the head of the alliance was a powerhouse who appeared as a mid-game mid-boss.
They couldn’t match one of the Ten Wings or the Supreme Commander of the Resistance, but they were more than qualified to call themselves the ruler of the lowest tier.
He was a biker-style boss with a bright red motorcycle as his trademark. The design had clearly taken a lot of effort.
As an aside, the bike’s nickname was ‘Red Hare’, a beast that could push up to 400 km/h. In the game, it had been designed to explode together with the boss upon death, so as not to drastically shorten playtime.
‘If the game’s become reality, couldn’t I make it mine somehow?’
After trying to rely on half-baked public transportation, I’d come to desperately want a personal vehicle.
If it were Red Hare, all the better. In terms of output alone, its top speed was SSS-rank.
Suddenly, a scene from countless SF anime of my childhood flashed through my mind.
A rear view dragging taillights as it disappeared into neon lights. That was romance. If you couldn’t relate, you might as well castrate yourself on the spot.
‘This is incredible.’
This got my blood pumping. I didn’t give a damn about the sensual scenery of the red-light district.
Because of this kind of single-minded personality, Team Leader Seo and the team members used to tear their hair out every time they looked at me.
Team Leader Seo, do you think Lee Taebaek can even date someone?
That’s an extremely rude thing to say.
Huh?
Rude to the unknown person who’d end up dating Assistant Manager Lee, I mean.
Ahaha, as expected of you, Team Leader!
There had been times like that.
Assistant Manager Lee, you don’t date?
When Team Leader Seo asked me that, poking my cheek with a canned coffee, I’d answered back like this.
‘Do I have to date? People think dating is essential, but I disagree. It’s a waste of money and time. I believe it’s better to work or improve myself during that time.’
Thanks for the textbook explanation of a lifelong single.
‘…….’
We’ll settle the tutoring fee with coffee. Alright then, good work~
While I was lost in thought for a moment, the guide gang member chattered enthusiastically about the nine major gang alliance.
“You’ve got quite the gift of gab.”
So I nodded along appropriately.
When the gang grinned vacantly, I jabbed the tip of the Para Blade deep into his side.
“You used that tongue to tell me ‘it’s possible’ earlier, didn’t you?”
“T-th-that was!”
I cut him off before his tongue could wag any longer.
“Go as far as that dark building over there, then turn left.”
“Y-Yes…….”
As I walked, I observed the faces around me.
I saw a fair number of customers who’d failed negotiations as well. Just as he’d said, most of them weren’t martial world folk.
Step, step.
The seductive voices of women became unseen hands that teased my guts. I wanted to rip off my mask and scratch myself raw right then and there.
‘If I take this off with this face, I’m seriously fucked.’
Objectively speaking, it was a handsome face. That wasn’t my own opinion—it was something I’d heard straight from other people’s mouths.
‘I get startled every time I look in the mirror.’
The reason I’d borrowed a mask from one of Jin Sobang’s subordinates was because my looks stood out too much. With a face like this, women would swarm me like mad.
And if I ran into someone who recognized me, it’d be awkward for both sides.
“Aww~ Oppaaa~ everyone’s watchinggg~”
“Our baby didn’t wash today, did she?”
Laughter and moans scattered everywhere.
No one spared even a glance at the gang member who was on the verge of death. In this world, bedroom affairs were worth far more than a human life.
“This place couldn’t even be released as DLC.”
“What’s DLC, boss?”
“Shut up and walk.”
I snapped coldly.
“Since when am I your boss? Your bosses are the ones standing before King Yama’s judgment stand right now.”
“H-hic… where is there even an afterlife.”
“If I say there is, then there is. So keep walking. To that spot with no people.”
As the strange, damp body odor thickened, the gang member’s tears only grew heavier. He realized instinctively that the moment of leaving this world was truly not far off.
‘Bosses, how could you leave without me!’
At that moment, a drizzle settled on the gang member’s ear.
‘We’ll be reunited soon, so don’t be sad.’
The brothers who’d gone on ahead smiled like demons.
Narrow-Eyed Man returned to the office.
“Branch Master… I’m back.”
“Good work. You—your mask?”
“Well… that happened.”
“Ah, ah, ah…….”
Narrow-Eyed Man let the corners of his eyes droop. Jin Sobang, having grasped the rough situation, fell into a low murmur.
That damn bandit went and did it after all…….
Stealing other people’s things like it was eating meals!
‘Kah (喝)!!!’
Habitually taking others’ belongings—he was practically greed incarnate sent down by heaven itself.
That Lee Taebaek bastard, didn’t he end up on death row for robbery or something? It was a reasonable suspicion.
Narrow-Eyed Man wore the face of a virgin rooster who’d gone to the red-light district only to lose his sympathy instead.
Jin Sobang glared at that gloomy face with bulging eyes, but it didn’t last long.
‘Better dead than sick, better dead than sick.’
In any case, he’d promised Seopung-gae that he’d support Lee Taebaek in every way. To be honest, he couldn’t muster the courage to press the issue.
“Submit the bill for the mask. I’ll buy you an even better one.”
Jin Sobang put down his fountain pen and sighed. Narrow-Eyed Man quietly nodded.
“Um, Branch Master.”
After hesitating several times as if choosing his words, Narrow-Eyed Man finally opened his mouth.
“I have one question.”
“Can you not ask it?”
“Pardon?”
“No, never mind. I was joking.”
That didn’t sound like a joke. Even so, Narrow-Eyed Man poured strength into his eye-power and steadfastly carried on his banner.
“It’s just that, why did you give Lee Taebaek a terminal under the name ‘Imugi’?”
“Ah, that.”
Jin Sobang pressed his lips together.
It was a secret tale Elder Seopung-gae had conveyed in confidence. He hesitated over whether it was all right to divulge it lightly.
‘He’s the liaison, so he does need to know the whole picture.’
Moreover, he was the subordinate he trusted the most.
Even when Jin Sobang had shouldered the blame and defected to the Clean Clothes Faction, this man had followed him without a word of complaint.
He often got misunderstood because of his sly-looking face, but when it came to loyalty, he overflowed with it.
Jin Sobang briefly closed his eyes and organized his thoughts, then opened them again. He spoke.
“He’s a death row inmate who escaped from the Brain Prison this time.”
“……!”
Narrow-Eyed Man’s eyes opened wide. He hadn’t noticed because they were always buried under his lids, but were they really that big?
“Elder Seopung-gae said MegaCorp is looking for that guy, using the city government as a front.”
“E-Elder Seopung-gae did? You mean he knows Lee Taebaek, that bandi—, no, that man?”
If Geojon was the legend of the Beggars’ Sect, then Seopung-gae was its hero.
Because of ‘that incident’ ten years ago, he’d leapt three whole stages, from a third-knot Branch Master to a sixth-knot Law Beggar. That anecdote circulated like a myth among the Beggars’ Sect.
“The reason I got tangled up with that bandit in the first place was through the elder. He asked me. Told me to watch his back a bit.”
“…What does that have to do with Lee Taebaek’s registered name being Imugi……?”
“You know Director Rahankel, right?”
“How could I not? He used to be the chieftain of the ninja tribe. Now he’s the city government’s lapdog.”
“More precisely, MegaCorp’s lackey.”
Jin Sobang propped his chin atop his interlaced fingers. The gaze he directed at Narrow-Eyed Man sank.
“I hear he’s been stirring up the lower district lately. Asking if anyone’s seen a guy who uses an MK5 Python.”
“Python.”
…The meaning of python was—
Jin Sobang added,
“A constrictor.”
“So that’s why Imugi. A snake, and the surname is ‘Lee’. I thought it meant something else.”
“What did you think it meant?”
Narrow-Eyed Man hesitated, then opened his mouth again.
“…Each of the Ten Wings has a symbolic animal, don’t they? Rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog, pig. Zi, chou, yin, mao, wu, si, shen, you, xu, hai…….”
Rabbit, sheep, rooster. Mao, wei, you were the Three Calamities.
The remaining seven animals were the Seven Existences.
“Hmm.”
“So I wondered, just in case.”
“Who knows.”
Jin Sobang released his interlaced fingers and shrugged.
“That might be the case too.”
A little time later, Lee Taebaek and the gang reached the edge of the red-light district. After slipping into a side alley once more, they came to a dead end.
“I’m really, really sorry. Never again.”
Thud! Gack!
Lee Taebaek kicked the gang member, whose face was deathly pale, inside and followed after checking the rear. Their silhouettes sank into the darkness.
The two were cut off from the red-light district. He couldn’t think of a place more fitting for killing someone.
‘Fuck.’
By then, even the gang member realized.
Ahead of him, having exhausted his usefulness, there was nothing left but death. He somehow steadied his pounding heart.
They said that even if you entered a tiger’s den, you’d live if you kept your wits about you. Even at a dead end, if he used his ingenuity, he could survive against this pretty-faced psychopath.
The gang clenched his one good fist. A skewer burst through the living flesh. It was a cheap dagger he’d had implanted while drunk, and now the time had come to use it.
“Aaaghhh, I’m sorry. I truly committed a sin deserving of death. Saying ‘possible’ when I saw you, boss. I should’ve shouted ‘impossible’ back then!”
The gang dropped to his knees and blindly begged for his life. Moisture welled up in his eyes until it looked like he was wearing goggles.
He’d learned by getting beaten that sweet-talking his way out was impossible anyway. It was better to put on a craven act and bide his time.
Schring.
Lee Taebaek brought the blade to the nape of his neck.
“Why do you think your bosses died?”
“T-th-th-that’s.”
The gang’s pupils gleamed.
“Because you didn’t kill me first!”
The gang straightened his knees with a fierce shout.
He charged as if to split the Adam’s apple with the spike sprouting from his hand. Propulsion driven by strength in the ankles!
However.
‘Huh?’
Lee Taebaek’s shoulder went slack.
The blade split the falling raindrops. A streak of light grazed the neck and overturned the gang’s field of vision.
Thunk, thunk.
The head bounced emptily a few times, then rolled and crashed at the dead end.
“Originally, I was going to end it with crippling you.”
Lee Taebaek furrowed his pretty brow.
The gang’s tightly clenched fist opened like a flower bud, revealing the dagger.
“What can you do. Your very existence is a bug.”
[You have obtained 8,764 experience points (EXP).]
[Taebaek’s level increases from 4 to 5.]
[Name: Lee Taebaek]
Level: 5(↑1)
Life: 16 Mental Strength: 19 Strength: 13
Agility: 20 Mana: 17 Faith: 15
[Operator Lee Taebaek successfully performed a bug fix.]
[An EXP bonus 50% event has occurred.]
[Applied to the two lowest stats.]
[‘Strength’ increases from 13 to 15.]
[‘Faith’ increases from 15 to 17.]
“Looks like I don’t get operator points since there are no remnants.”
Lee Taebaek muttered and closed the notification window. He was just grumbling for nothing—he felt good.
Thanks to the operator buff, despite being a single-digit level, all his stats were approaching 20.
If he made good use of the restrictions, even aiming for the superhuman gateway of 30 in a stat didn’t seem out of reach.
Then even the nine major gang bosses…….
That was arrogance, but at least it meant he could gain the upper hand in a barehanded fight against the boss of a small-to-mid gang. He’d only just arrived at the brutally dangerous lowest tier, so this level-up was more valuable than ever. Like a timely rain falling just right.
Lee Taebaek opened his umbrella again. He washed the blood on his hands off outside the umbrella.
That aside, how was he supposed to find the Order’s believers in this boiling pot with no room to set foot?
He should’ve at least asked for descriptions of their appearance before coming.
“And how are they even handing out relief rice and condoms and sex-whatever? Are they dragging around a rear car or something?”
Did he kill him too hastily?
“It’d be really nice if they just fell from the sky—.”
Thud!
Thududududu!
No sooner had Lee Taebaek grumbled than a thunderous roar that shredded the air crashed down everywhere.
It was a sound that whipped up emotions. Exactly like right before a helicopter landed.
People all lifted their heads at once. Even those inside buildings stuck their heads out the windows.
“Angels!”
Lee Taebaek looked in the same direction. His gaze stopped in the sky.
Monstrous figures wearing wing suits on their backs flew above the red-light district. The sight of steel wings tearing through the clouds was stamped vividly into his vision.
“No way.”
Come on, that can’t be right?
But there was a universal rule when it came to prefacing something with ‘no way’.
Damn it. My precognition just keeps getting sharper by the day.
Shrrrrrk!
From the group of monsters impersonating angels, profane objects poured down as if feathers were scattering. Contraceptives, sex—whatever. Things like that.
“Heh, just look at how this worldbuilding’s turning out.”
The Lilith Order made a chaotic entrance.