novelraw Chapter 51
Chapter 51
Chapter 51
–Geum Kang-hyeok.
It did not take very long for that subtle sense of unfamiliarity—yet seeming as though he had heard it before—to turn into certainty.
‘Geum Young Group.’
One pillar of the mega-corporation that had split the Free Planet Alliance into five and swallowed it whole.
He could not clearly recall the name itself, but judging by the fact that he personally led securities and banking, he was likely one of the heirs.
“You speak as if you know me.”
However, it was not only the burly men in white suits escorting him that grated on his nerves.
Contrary to his name, the man was not entirely East Asian—his angular jaw and deeply set eye sockets formed a sly expression. That face alone was irritating enough, but even more so was the unpleasant look that seemed to say he knew exactly who Jin Crow was, and what he had come here to do.
“Well then. Shall we move somewhere else first?”
As expected.
The man did not care at all about Jin Crow’s words. He merely shrugged once and turned his head slightly left and right as he spoke lightly.
“There are too many eyes watching. There happens to be a bar nearby that I frequent…….”
For a moment, the familiarity of the routine made Jin Crow wonder whether he should just swallow his hip flask right then and there, but he soon withdrew his hand from his coat.
“Lead the way.”
“It’s an honor.”
As if he had known this would happen, the man curled the corner of his lips into a grin and walked ahead toward the ostentatious limousine parked in front of the platform.
He did not like it.
But this was not just anywhere—it was Mercato, the capital of the Free Planet Alliance, and he could not act rashly toward the Geum Young Group here.
‘And the same goes for them.’
It was on the premise that they knew who he was, but when he thought about it, it was not that strange.
Whether the Human Composite State or the Holy Galactic Empire, they were the sort of people who set up branches everywhere and conducted business across the entire galaxy.
Since he had not entered illegally, they would have had more than enough opportunity to notice him.
Had it been about ten minutes since they got into the limousine? Jin Crow’s tension—maintained in preparation to use either his hip flask or Pentacle at any moment—proved unnecessary as the car stopped in an alleyway starkly contrasting with the towering skyscrapers.
Geum Kang-hyeok stepped out of the car, took out a thick cigar, bit it between his lips, and spoke in his characteristically slick voice.
“Now then, shall we go inside, Instructor.”
Was he no longer even trying to hide it?
Jin Crow let out a dry chuckle and walked into the quiet bar. Perhaps they had been contacted in advance, as the only one inside was an old bartender with a stylishly grown beard.
Of course, it was newly striking that the bartender’s body was covered in all kinds of tattoos—and that he had an extra arm attached to his shoulder.
“John, one Dirty Martini.”
“Yes, Mr. Geum.”
The men in white suits followed them into the car, but only Jin Crow and Geum Kang-hyeok entered the bar itself.
He sat down at the bar counter with practiced ease, ordered his drink, then looked at Jin Crow and shrugged as if asking whether he would not sit.
Jin Crow briefly scanned the area for a possible escape route, then took a seat and spoke to the bartender, who was polishing a glass with his spare arm.
“Godfather. Skip the cinnamon stick.”
“Understood.”
“Godfather. A fine old cocktail.”
Jin Crow did not bother replying to Geum Kang-hyeok’s remark.
Geum Kang-hyeok likewise seemed not to expect an answer. He shrugged once more, clipped the end of the cigar in his mouth, and lit it.
Chik, hss-.
Naturally, Jin Crow could not hold back either.
“…….”
As the bartender busied himself mixing drinks, the smoke from the cigarette and the cigar intertwined in the air, and as if breaking the silence, two glasses were set down in front of them.
‘Godfather.’
Jin Crow looked down at the dark brown liquor before him, then lightly swirled it once and held it in his mouth.
After the nutty sweetness, the heavy alcohol pressed down his esophagus. Finding the taste not bad at all, he unconsciously took another drag on his cigarette—just as Geum Kang-hyeok, having popped the olive from his Dirty Martini into his mouth, spoke.
“Aren’t you curious? About why the second son of the Geum Young Group went out of his way to seek you out, Instructor.”
“Well.”
Second son, was it.
It was not information he particularly cared about.
“Ah, there’s something I’d like to ask first. Just how much do you know about this country called the Free Planet Alliance?”
Without even looking at him, Jin Crow flicked the ash from his half-burnt cigarette.
Despite that attitude, which would have been enough to offend anyone, the man calmly continued speaking.
“In the Empire or the Composite State, they often call us vulgar capitalists, or accuse us of being shadow politics where corporations own the state.”
“And are they wrong?”
“How could they be?”
Jin Crow had expected him to deny it outright. When he turned his head at the unexpected agreement, Geum Kang-hyeok inhaled a puff of cigar smoke with an irritating expression that seemed to say, ‘So you’re finally looking at me?’
“We’re just suggesting a slight change in wording. Wouldn’t the Emperor of the Empire or the Chancellor of the Composite State feel unpleasant if someone said such things to their face—corrupt feudalism, militarism, and the like?”
Using his words as a side dish, Jin Crow took another drink, then crushed out the cigarette that had burned all the way to the filter and stared straight at him.
Then he took another cigarette from his coat, put it in his mouth, and spoke.
“You’re long-winded. If you know who I am, then you should know what kind of person I am as well.”
“Haha, of course.”
Once again he felt it—seeing such an oily expression on that rough-looking face made the pleasant taste of the alcohol from moments ago vanish entirely.
But before Jin Crow could spit out an irritated remark, Geum Kang-hyeok, who had been casually rambling until now, immediately got to the point.
“The black market. Use our side.”
“…….”
“Oh my, you told me to get to the point first, so I did. Was it too blunt?”
It was impossible to tell whether Jin Crow had momentarily failed to control his expression, or whether Geum Kang-hyeok had read the flicker of emotion from nothing more than a brief distortion of his eyebrows.
But one thing was certain—the man knew the purpose of his visit.
‘Should I kill him?’
There was no way Jin Crow would ever have told anyone why he was headed to the Free Planet Alliance.
Nectar (Νέκταρ).
If the man knew that he was looking for it, then where had things gone wrong?
Whether or not he knew that Jin Crow was contemplating cutting his throat, Geum Kang-hyeok continued to smile brightly.
However, that did not last long. Perhaps sensing the unusual tension in the air, Geum Kang-hyeok took a sip of his Dirty Martini and spoke.
“……Haha, please don’t misunderstand. After all, stimulants are inseparable from soldiers, aren’t they? And managing regular customers is, at the end of the day, just part of doing business.”
Yet soon Jin Crow realized that something about Geum Kang-hyeok’s words felt oddly off, and he fell silent.
As if he thought that was the correct answer, Geum Kang-hyeok added more, even though Jin Crow had not told him to continue.
“Honestly, I was surprised. Someone who always entered anonymously came in under his real name, and boldly at that, in a military-only business class seat……. So I thought it was a kind of gesture. It seems that wasn’t the case after all.”
“…….”
He unnecessarily moistened his dry lips with liquor.
Then, as he overlaid his actions up to now with Geum Kang-hyeok’s attitude, he could not help but belatedly realize what kind of mistake he had made.
‘Damn it.’
Come to think of it, how could Jin Crow have brought in alcohol containing stimulant components.
Until now, he had assumed he requested it through a faction, but if he mulled it over again, there was no way the paranoid Jin Crow would have handed over to another person such a critical weakness that could become a leash around his own neck.
Then the answer was simple.
He had sought out the black market himself.
And with a forged identity, at that.
In fact, if he did not want his destination to be revealed, it was the natural thing to do.
‘Careless. No, this was closer to stupidity.’
Either his mind had gone completely haywire because his eyes had been blinded by Oparts,
or the prolonged drinking, smoking, and caffeine intake had put his brain cells into a gas chamber and carried out a mass slaughter.
Gulp-.
He downed the remaining Godfather in one go, then spun up his belatedly reactivated brain cells to their limit to devise the best possible answer for the current situation.
“Troublesome.”
As if he had never shown a wavering expression, he calmly put a cigarette back in his mouth. At that sudden change in attitude, Geum Kang-hyeok instead furrowed his brow.
“Yes?”
“You pass.”
Jin Crow twisted his pale cheek into a vicious grin and spoke.
“Guide me to the best black market on your side.”
No answer.
So, for now, he decided to brazen it out.
……Well, so what.
–Haha, as expected of you, Instructor. I would like to guide you personally, but due to lack of time, please go with this fellow.
Leaving those words behind, Geum Kang-hyeok assigned a thin, bespectacled man who had been sitting in the driver’s seat of the limousine.
“Haha, nice to meet you. I’m Min-su, the boss’s apprentice secretary.”
Contrary to his frail-looking impression, he possessed quite a cheerful personality. He busily rummaged through his coat and handed over a plastic-coated business card.
However, perhaps he was not a pure-blood human—his eyes slanted sharply, and his ears were slightly long.
Even his name was a bit…… ill-suited.
Even so, since he could not exactly blurt out openly discriminatory species remarks like, ‘Say, which planet is your father from? You’re not an elf, are you? I hope not. Because the only good elf is a dead elf,’ Jin Crow said instead,
“Lead the way.”
“Yes! Just follow me.”
He led Jin Crow into the alley where the bar was, passed through winding paths, and arrived in front of a shabby-looking warehouse.
Then, after waiting briefly, the warehouse doors opened, and guards in white suits came out, scrunching their faces as their muscles bulged.
At that intimidating sight, just as Jin Crow briefly wondered if it was a trap, the men promptly straightened their stiff backs.
“Welcome! Valued customer!”
“We will escort you inside!”
And it did not take long to realize that their severely contorted faces had been smiles in their own way.
“Haha, they may look rough, but they’re trustworthy. They’re all with Geum Young Security. Especially the one on the left there—he joined the company the same time I did…….”
This half-elf had a lot to say.
Still, thanks to Obia and Dokgo Ran, who were usually so loud and unruly, it was at least bearable—an admittedly bitter consolation.
How long had they walked like that.
Just as his patience, stretched thin by walking through a tunnel reminiscent of an underground waterway extending from the warehouse, was about to run out, they reached the end of a corridor where increasingly loud hyper-pop could be heard.
“Ah, I almost forgot this.”
Min-su took something out of the briefcase he was carrying and handed it to him.
Lowering his gaze to inspect it, what he found in his hand was none other than a mask with a smiley face etched in LED lights.
“This is, after all, a ‘black market.’ You weren’t planning to go in with your bare face, were you? Haha.”
Seeing his pointless laughter, Jin Crow did not even feel like picking a fight, so he silently put on the mask.
Min-su smiled brightly and pulled on his own mask, which had both eyes and mouth marked with X’s, then turned the bent corridor and spoke cheerfully.
“Welcome. To the Free Planet Alliance!”
Soon, following the tip of the scrawny Min-su’s finger, what filled Jin Crow’s vision was—
“Khahahaha! Kill him! Kill him!”
An arena where androids and cyborgs, and all manner of species, were mixed together.
“Hey there, oppa, want to get a glow tattoo? Organ tattoo? Of course it’s possible!”
A tattooist shaking a fluorescent liquid that one could not even tell was ink.
“Hey there, I’ll do full-body procedures cheap. Want one? Heh heh.”
A ripperdoc hawking his services in a metallic voice.
“A harsh world where you never know when you’ll get stabbed in the back! Grind down your opponent’s back first! Tactical enhancement suits smuggled from the Composite State military—Titan (Titan) for only 1,000 credits! Composite State dollars or Imperial francs accepted!”
Even the smugglers.
It was truly a complete mess, overflowing with every kind of light pollution, noise, and decadent near-humans.