Chapter 61

Chapter 61

After guiding Mandy and Kim Sang-sik to their quarters, Cha Dong-seok came outside.

There was no room to doubt their identities.

Kim Sang-sik’s access card had been decisive.

The problem was Zeon.

How to treat an Awakened from the slums was entirely up to him.

“They must have trained him properly by now.”

They had worked together for a long time.

With one look in his eyes, they knew what Cha Dong-seok wanted.

They would have thoroughly beaten Zeon into shape on their own.

It was not that he bore any particular grudge against Zeon.

This sort of thing happened all the time in Neo Seoul.

There was a widespread belief that Awakened from the slums, in particular, had to be handled harshly and have their spirit broken.

Even if a problem arose because of this incident, those above would not question him.

He arrived in front of the shabby lodging house where Zeon had been taken.

But it was strangely quiet.

“Surely those bastards didn’t kill him, did they?”

Feeling uneasy, Cha Dong-seok threw the door open.

The moment he saw the inside of the lodging house, Cha Dong-seok doubted his own eyes. An unbelievable scene had unfolded before him.

“Ghh! Captain.”

“Grrgh!”

All his subordinates had collapsed on the floor, groaning.

Each of them was crawling over the floor with an arm or leg bent in a grotesque direction.

In the middle of it all was Zeon.

Zeon sat in a chair and looked at Cha Dong-seok.

“Welcome.”

“What the hell? Why are they......?”

Startled, Cha Dong-seok drew his sword.

SCRAAAAAPE!

Zeon rose from the chair and approached Cha Dong-seok.

Cha Dong-seok aimed his sword at Zeon’s neck.

“Did you do this to them?”

“They tried to look at someone else’s Rank Insignia without permission.”

“You did this to them for a reason as pathetic as that? You son of a bitch......”

“If you swing that sword, your wrist won’t be safe either.”

“Do you think you can enter Neo Seoul after doing this?”

“It doesn’t matter as long as I don’t enter Neo Seoul itself. I’ll be staying in the slums.”

“Grr!”

Cha Dong-seok gritted his teeth.

Neo Seoul and the slums were attached to each other, but they were effectively separate districts.

Unless something unusual happened, Neo Seoul did not interfere in the affairs of the slums.

Interfering would only bring more troublesome problems. Because of that, they acknowledged a certain degree of autonomy there.

Zeon approached right in front of Cha Dong-seok’s nose.

They were close enough to feel each other’s breath, so Cha Dong-seok could see Zeon’s eyes.

Deep, black eyes that felt strangely dry.

At that instant, Cha Dong-seok felt a chill.

Just meeting Zeon’s eyes made his mind reel, as if his soul were falling into an abyss.

This feeling was a first for him.

He had never felt this way even from high-ranking Awakened in Neo Seoul.

Although he was only Grade D, he was still a veteran who had gone through all kinds of rough work.

The moment he realized something had gone wrong, he hurriedly changed his attitude.

“I apologize. You should have told me you were a high-ranking Awakened.”

“Mandy and Mr. Kim Sang-sik vouched for me, but it seems you’ve already forgotten.”

“That is...... I apologize.”

When it was time to lower one’s head, one had to lower it properly.

Cha Dong-seok made no further excuses and apologized clearly.

It was not as though his subordinates’ level was terribly low.

They were all Grade D or Grade E Awakened.

People like that had been defeated miserably by Zeon without managing to inflict a single wound.

If the situation would not change even if he stepped forward, then it was right to bury everything here and withdraw.

Fortunately, Zeon had no intention of making the problem any larger than this.

“Then there’s no problem between us, right?”

“Was there any problem?”

“That’s a relief. At least you’re someone I can talk to.”

“I’ll move you to another lodging.”

“No. This is more than enough.”

“Still......”

“I’d like to be alone now.”

“Understood. Then please rest comfortably.”

Cha Dong-seok bowed his head deeply to Zeon, then shouted at his subordinates.

“Hey, you bastards! Are you not getting up? Everyone, get up already.”

“Ghh!”

“Ugh!”

His subordinates struggled to their feet.

Cha Dong-seok went outside with them.

Once the sound of people had disappeared outside, Zeon murmured,

“Now I can finally rest a little.”

It was an initiation rite he had to go through anyway.

If he could get past it with only this much, then it was not a bad thing for him either.

Zeon sat in the chair and looked around the inside of the lodging house.

Then he suddenly chuckled.

“This is the place.”

It was the lodging house where he had stayed when he had come to the Mana Stone Mine eight years ago.

Since nothing had changed, he recognized it immediately.

He had slept here for one night, then been dragged straight to the Mana Stone Mine. There, he had fallen into a dungeon. And eight years had passed.

Now Zeon was no longer a child, nor was he going to work in the mine. Yet being here somehow made him feel as though he had to enter the Mana Stone Mine.

“Come to think of it, that old man was here too.”

The old swindler who had charged him no less than ten sol for one meal and had robbed him of a Mana Stone worth three hundred sol for a mere one hundred sol.

In exchange, he had received the hourglass and obtained Exion, but the fact that Zeon had been swindled did not change.

Even though a long time had passed, he remembered the old man’s face vividly.

“He said his name was Clexi, didn’t he? Maybe I should see his face for the first time in a while.”

There was nothing for him to do inside anyway.

Zeon went outside.

Fortunately, perhaps because Cha Dong-seok had told them in advance, no one picked a fight with him or blocked his way.

Thanks to that, Zeon was able to reach the area where old man Clexi had done business without trouble.

This place had hardly changed either.

The moment Zeon appeared, merchants emerged here and there.

“Come over this way.”

“I’ve got good goods here.”

“You look like a complete greenhorn. Get yourself equipped here before you go.”

The merchants’ eyes gleamed with greed.

They had taken Zeon for a novice and were trying to fleece him somehow.

This was everyday life here.

One had to keep one’s wits sharp. If one was swept along carelessly, one would be stripped bare, hide and all.

Zeon ignored their calls and looked around. But Clexi was nowhere to be seen.

With no other choice, he approached one of the merchants trying to lure him.

“Let me ask you something.”

“You can ask ten questions if you want, as long as you buy something of mine......”

“If there’s anything worth buying, I will.”

“Good! Ask away.”

“Where did old man Clexi go? I’m sure he used to do business here.”

“Ah, that old man? He packed everything up and went into Neo Seoul not long ago.”

“So he isn’t dead.”

“You’ll have to wait several more decades for that old man to die. He’s that hale and hearty.”

“I see.”

“Now, pick something. I’ll give it to you cheap.”

The merchant answered carelessly and spread both arms wide.

Behind him, countless items were packed tightly together.

Zeon looked through them, wondering if there might be something like the hourglass from which he had obtained Exion, but there was nothing he liked.

“They’re all things I don’t need. I’ll be going.”

“Ah, don’t be like that. Buy one thing. I said I’d give it to you cheap.”

The merchant grabbed Zeon’s shoulder roughly.

There was an unspoken rule that anyone who entered this district could not leave empty-handed.

One had to buy at least something before leaving.

Of course, it was a rule the merchants had made among themselves.

But Zeon lightly ignored that rule.

“No, thank you. Why would I buy trash?”

“What? Trash? You bastard!”

The merchant glared.

Inwardly, he thought this had worked out nicely.

He intended to use this as an excuse to squeeze a fortune out of Zeon.

He put strength into the hand gripping Zeon’s shoulder.

At that instant, Zeon clicked his tongue and said,

“Tch! Did you never learn what happens when you touch someone else’s body carelessly?”

“What did you say, you bastard?”

CRACK, CRUNCH!

At that instant, a chilling snapping sound rang out.

“Kraaaaagh!”

Under tremendous pain, the merchant grabbed his wrist and collapsed.

His wrist had been broken and was dangling loose.

Zeon had broken it.

“That’s how your wrist breaks.”

“You son of a bitch!”

The merchant screamed reflexively. Then the surrounding merchants gathered one by one.

They were naturally creating an atmosphere of fear.

Because of this atmosphere, people who came here for the first time ended up being stripped of everything down to their underwear.

Just as the old Zeon had been. But the current Zeon was not the awkward novice he had once been.

SWISH!

Zeon rolled up his sleeve so the fist wearing the gauntlet could be seen clearly. At that, the approaching merchants flinched.

Ordinary people almost never wore armaments like gauntlets.

Only Awakened wore such weapons.

In other words, this young man wearing a playful smile was an Awakened.

“Ahem! Come to think of it, I left my shop open.”

“Ah, I forgot I left a pot on the fire.”

“Ouch! My leg.”

The merchants pretended to be busy with other things and returned to their shops.

At that, the merchant with the broken wrist looked betrayed. But this was reality.

Even if dozens of ordinary people gathered, they could not handle a single Awakened.

If he wanted to blame someone, he had to blame his own carelessness in trying to fleece someone without realizing he was an Awakened.

“Damn it!”

His eyes filled with tears.

Zeon crouched down and met his gaze.

“Then we should settle the bill.”

“The bill? What kind of bullshit is that? You broke someone’s arm.”

“Come on, why are you acting like this? You were the one who treated me like a sucker first. You tried to treat an Awakened like a sucker and got hurt, so isn’t it a little wrong to look so wronged?”

“Grrgh!”

“Let’s keep the calculation simple. One hundred sol. Just one hundred sol, and I’ll forget everything that happened today.”

One hundred sol was the money old man Clexi had given him when he had robbed him of the Mana Stone long ago.

It had been an item worth at least three hundred sol, yet it had been taken from him for only one hundred.

Back then, he had been robbed helplessly because he had no experience and nowhere to go, but now the situation was different.

Zeon looked at the merchant with a grin. But to the merchant, his smile became immense pressure.

‘Damn it! He wasn’t a sucker. He was a reaper.’

There was nowhere he could go to complain about his injustice.

This was the Mana Stone Mine, a place where if you failed to strip someone, you had nothing to say even if you were stripped bare instead.

The one who was caught was the fool.

With his good hand, he took out one hundred sol.

The hand that handed the money to Zeon trembled.

It felt so wasteful that tears of blood might pour from his eyes. But Zeon accepted the money coldly.

“Thank you. Thanks to you, I won’t have to worry about money for a while. Is there anyone else willing to touch me? It would be nice if there were.”

Zeon tucked the money into his clothes and muttered.

At the sight of Zeon, the merchant trembled.

‘This bastard is a demon. He fleeced a merchant like me.’

Leaving the merchant staring blankly in despair behind, Zeon leisurely left the market district.

Quite a lot had happened on his first day at the Mana Stone Mine. Thanks to that, it was good that he had not been bored.

Zeon slowly strolled through the mining city.

Since most of the miners had not yet come out of the mine shafts, the city was quiet. Even so, quite a few people were moving through the streets.

It had been a long time since he had seen so many people all at once.

Zeon simply sat down on one side of the street and watched the people passing by.

It was not perfect, but he could truly feel that he had stepped onto the threshold of the civilized world.

‘This is nice.’