novelraw Chapter 58
Chapter 58
Chapter 58
“Failed?”
“Yes. Miller said the traitor was dealt with, but it seems she found a highly skilled mercenary.”
The man in the suit kept muttering excuses, trying somehow to hide his own incompetence, but to Lucky Anubis, only the word ‘failure’ echoed in his mind.
“Useless trash.”
“I’m sorry.”
“……That’s enough. Get out.”
Instead of a towering skyscraper, Lucky Anubis’s icy voice echoed through the study of a vast, old-fashioned mansion that at a glance was steeped in nostalgia for the past.
The one who had delivered the report—the caporegime (Caporegime: mid-level boss)—withdrew while watching for any stray sparks that might fly his way, and in the end, his judgment proved rather wise.
―Aaaaaaah!
The instant the door closed behind him, Lucky Anubis’s roar rang out, accompanied by the sound of something shattering.
‘That ignorant bastard.’
Cursing inwardly, he nevertheless knew he could never betray Lucky Anubis.
What he had been given was far too sweet, and no matter how he looked at it, Tita Genorua seemed to have no chance of winning.
It wasn’t because he overestimated Lucky Anubis.
What he trusted was the decision of Stero Mer, who led the committee commonly known as the Owners’ Meeting.
‘If that man raised Lucky’s hand, then of course I should side with him. In the first place, the problem was that the Godfather opposed him.’
Shaking off the lingering trace of anxiety and guilt in his heart, he quickened his steps, leaving behind the ever-rising shouts.
“Huuk, huuk――.”
Meanwhile, inside the study, Lucky Anubis—having half-flipped and hurled his desk aside—gasped for breath before walking over to the wall, uncorking one of the displayed whiskeys, and pouring it straight down his throat.
It was a luxury item worth well over 1,000 dollars per bottle, but right now, more than that kind of money, he desperately needed something to quell the boiling in his gut.
Yet no matter how much liquor beyond most people’s imagination he downed in one go, there was nothing he could do about this damnable sense of displeasure.
“Tita Genorua. That immature brat…….”
All she had was the Genorua surname.
And yet, she seized the consigliere position in a single stroke.
Though he had devoted his entire life to the family, never obtaining it, even the Godfather—who had always said he cherished him like an adopted son—ultimately intended to hand the family over to that greenhorn bitch.
Inferiority. Defeat. Jealousy.
It would be a lie to say he felt none of it.
‘He tried to endure it.’
Because he believed that was the final courtesy owed to his benefactor.
His reflection showed a face in complete disarray.
The hair he had slicked back with pomade had long since fallen apart, and his eyes were bloodshot, making him look anything but presentable.
But right now, appearances didn’t matter.
‘There’s still time, still time to clean this up.’
Even if she had found something out, wasn’t it a game that ended as long as he took down the queen called Tita Genorua?
The murder company. Those human butchers couldn’t move.
They mustn’t move. They were always neutral.
Shaking his head wildly in frustration, he soon threw himself roughly onto the sofa that, until recently, had belonged to the old man.
Then, staring fixedly at the still-unremoved photograph of the previous Godfather for the sake of legitimacy, he murmured,
“……It’s lonely. Were you like this too?”
How could he not know that even those who followed him did so only for the power and money right before their eyes?
But he had faced the truth.
Stero Mer.
What arrangements that old monster had prepared with his entire life—and that it was already impossible to stop them.
His trembling fingertips compulsively wiped across his face.
Then, as he took in the contents of the documents that had just come up to him, he closed his eyes.
“……There isn’t much time left. Please.”
It was a voice trembling beyond measure.
Leaving Tita Genorua’s little scheme behind, Jin Crow headed straight for the hotel.
He was worried there might be an ambush along the way, but what mattered now more than the risk of attack was the awakening drug he had left at the hotel.
“Did you get everything?”
“Yeah. Let’s go.”
After packing up their belongings, Tita Genorua gripped the steering wheel in a voice that had grown noticeably colder, silently accelerating as she headed toward the outskirts.
‘……Was it too much?’
Jin Crow wasn’t clueless.
He wasn’t some eunuch protagonist out of a novel—how could he not know that she had shown interest in him?
Of course, the development had been seriously fast, but foreign countries were open like that, so let it pass.
He chewed on the thought while taking in the slums reflected outside the window, starkly contrasted with the glittering city.
‘It’d be a lie to say she has no charm.’
Was it because this was a world from a novel?
Or had genetics simply improved as science advanced?
It was harder to find a woman with poor looks among those he met, and as a man, his gaze would sometimes be drawn despite himself.
But an even heavier pressure weighed down on his shoulders.
‘This must be why Baek Hwi-young never fully accepted Miel’s feelings.’
He had no grand cause, no particular resolve to live a clean life.
How many people had he already killed?
But one thing was certain.
Right now, he had no leeway to waste time on romance or love.
It wasn’t a story limited to Tita Genorua.
It was unfair, but what could he do?
Still, since he had already stepped into this, he needed to ease this awkward atmosphere at least a little, if only to obtain the unpaid money and information.
“Don’t misunderstand.”
“…….”
“It’s not that you lack charm. And you’re still young, so…….”
“Boomer.”
“……I’m not a boomer. You’re still young, so you probably don’t understand yet.”
“Smoke a cigarette or put some alcohol in your mouth. Stop being annoying.”
“Fine.”
Jin Crow didn’t bother adding anything more and quietly put a cigarette to his lips.
Even as he spoke, he had felt that something was going wrong.
How much longer did the silence continue like that?
She passed a road marked District 19, stopped the car at a shabby factory site, and before getting out, took a cigarette and lit it.
“……How much is it?”
Her voice, now even more flat, was thoroughly rational, as if the emotions she had shown earlier were a lie, and thanks to that, Jin Crow was able to answer without any burden.
“Money, as much as you can spare. But there’s information I want you to look into.”
“……Was it 400 million dollars you received just now?”
She seemed to ponder for a moment, tapping the steering wheel with her finger before speaking again.
“600 million dollars. That’s the limit of what I can give right now. And the information……. You’ve been hinting at it since earlier, so what exactly do you want to know?”
He hesitated briefly at the question that had been thrown at him.
Should he tell her?
There was no way deep bonds or trust could have formed in such a short time.
If he wanted to leave, he could have left from the start.
No matter how formidable the mafia might be, could they really retaliate if he returned to the Composite State?
‘But…….’
In the original story, the one who led the Genorua Family was Lucky Anubis.
Naturally, the name Tita Genorua appeared nowhere.
However, Baek Hwi-young went to the Free Planet Alliance not now, but several years later, and by that time the Genorua Family had clearly gone beyond decline and was effectively expelled from the Committee.
‘Maybe this is a chance to shuffle in a card usable for the Committee.’
When he first heard the words of the dying Genorua Family mafia in the alley, it had been a possibility; when he heard Tita Genorua’s proposal, it became certainty.
……The Composite State alone cannot stop the Creatures.
It wasn’t a lack of confidence, nor was it needless pessimism—it was a cold assessment.
‘A war that won’t end with just one or two planets.’
When higher-grade monsters appeared, and further still, the moment lord-class beings crossed the void and arrived, disaster would begin.
To prepare for that moment, he firmly believed that doing everything possible was the right course.
“That’s for later. I’ll ask after everything’s finished.”
“……Suit yourself.”
Jin Crow left room for maneuver in his answer and got out of the car, and Tita Genorua, as if she had expected that, nodded and got out as well.
The factory was utterly deserted.
No matter how one looked at it, it seemed a long time had passed since anyone had set foot there, yet Tita Genorua paid it no mind, covering the car with a cloth off to the side before leading him down the rear stairs connected to the fence.
“Ugh.”
She cleared away a desk and lockers thickly covered in dust, and naturally gray dust smeared and stained her black suit.
Just as he was about to question her actions, Jin Crow saw the wardrobe that was revealed and understood why she had come to this factory.
“……Is hiding things behind a wardrobe some kind of trend?”
“Hm?”
“Never mind.”
Inside the cleverly concealed furniture was an old wardrobe that looked unpleasant to touch at a glance, and when she opened it, a metal door—apparently made of carbine alloy—came into view.
She turned her head at Jin Crow’s muttering and questioned him, then shrugged once and opened the door with her fingerprint.
Wiiing―.
The door opened as if it had been waiting, and she walked in ahead, saying,
“Come in.”
“If we go in like this, won’t the door be exposed?”
“Ah.”
Tita Genorua snickered, grabbed his wrist, and pulled him inside, and once they were in the corridor, she pressed a protruding button on one wall.
Wiiing―.
Then, the furniture that had looked as if she’d haphazardly cleared it away slowly returned to its original positions, and from the sprinklers attached to the ceiling, dust was sprayed instead of water.
“Huh.”
“Did you think we wouldn’t even be prepared for that much?”
Looking into Jin Crow’s black eyes as he stared at her in disbelief, Tita Genorua murmured that and walked deeper into the corridor.
However, her pace gradually slowed.
She brushed the dust from her shoulder, and the nonchalance she had maintained until now vanished.
Perhaps because she sensed the change in atmosphere.
Instead of looking at him, Tita Genorua spoke in a low voice.
“From here on, don’t misunderstand even if I look down on you. We have our own rules.”
As if the light demeanor she had shown until now had vanished without a trace, she moved forward with even the faint smile that had lingered on her lips erased.
And finally, after passing through the not-so-long corridor and arriving at what seemed to be the factory’s basement, she grasped the doorknob and said,
“Welcome. To the real Genorua Family.”
Creeeak, the door opened.
At that, the voices that had been heard intermittently inside stopped in an instant, and the sight that came into view was—
“Greetings, Consigliere.”
“Greetings, Consigliere.”
Inside the rather simply furnished room, dozens of men and women in suits stood and bowed their heads in unison.
“……Guh. Cough! Khhk.”
Along with that, a single man hanging upside down, bleeding.
And, sitting calmly in a chair, she took the revolver handed to her by the man standing beside her and said,
“Because of your betrayal, Lorenzo and Paul died. Michele.”
“Th, there was…… no choice. Con……. Consigli……. Please…….”
At her words, Michele—who looked as though he had been subjected to brutal torture—begged for mercy, babbling excuses to her with shaking pupils.
But what rang out at that moment was not a whisper of merciful forgiveness.
Click―.
As the muzzle was aimed, a chill brushed against his heart.
“Blood must be washed with blood.”
She recited coldly and pulled the trigger.
Bang!
A short gunshot rang out, and the human who had been thrashing in agony collapsed into a lump of meat.
“Then, shall we talk business now? Jin. Just as you wanted.”
With blood splattered about, under the dim lighting, she turned her head and murmured with an expressionless face.
And at that moment.
“We’ve arrived!”
“……I’m tired.”
“Miel, I heard there’s a department store.”
“Yeah. Let’s go. Kanae.”
Baek Hwi-young looked at his needlessly energetic friends, enduring the throbbing headache, and thought,
‘……It’s fine. Since we’re here, I can look for Nectar too.’