Chapter 32 : A Trick of Fate. (2)
Chapter 32: A Trick of Fate. (2)
Early morning at the factory, the president came running in as if he were being chased by something, flustered and out of breath.
Kkalkki raised one hand and said,
“Uh? Boss come?!”
“Huff. Huff!”
The president panted as he kept glancing back over his shoulder.
The way he was acting, all flustered, looked suspicious.
“Boss-nim. Why you like dat?”
“Kkalkki. If anyone asks for me, tell them I’m absolutely not here. Got it?”
“Ung?”
The president hurriedly hid himself inside the warehouse.
Soon after, a group of bulky men and a slender man entered the factory.
“Hmm.”
The man was wearing a full tracksuit, top and bottom.
His clothes were ordinary, but his sleazy impression and vile eyes were anything but.
‘Ah, it’s that guy.’
I recognized him instantly.
I had come in and out of this place often even in my previous life.
“President Kim! I saw you go in here!”
The tracksuit man shouted loud enough to shake the factory.
“Let’s not waste each other’s energy early in the morning.”
The people inside the factory glanced at him briefly, then went back to focusing on their work.
If they stopped working over a minor incident, they wouldn’t meet the set delivery deadline.
When there was no response, the tracksuit man stepped in front of Kkalkki, blocking his way.
“Sa-wat-dee-khap?”
He greeted him politely with both hands together, but his expression was clearly mocking.
“Your boss. Where he go? Huh? Your boss. Where?”
“I don’t speaking Korean. I no know Korean. Namaste.”
Kkalkki was a quick-witted one.
By instinct, he realized that the tracksuit man was bad news and hurriedly left the area.
It was an excellent choice.
Nothing good ever came from getting involved with that bastard.
Left alone, the tracksuit man let out a deep sigh.
“President Kim. You’re really getting on my nerves.”
The tracksuit man pushed one of the hulks behind him forward and raised his voice.
“We’re not kids. What is this? You want to play hide-and-seek? Fine. Let’s do it. Hey, search!”
“Yes, boss!”
The hulks searched the factory thoroughly.
They even broke into the locked president’s office, but no one was there.
The workers glanced at them uneasily.
Among them, someone was conscious of the warehouse side.
A secret place only the factory people knew.
The warehouse where Kkalkki’s styrofoam bed was.
The tracksuit man didn’t miss that moment.
He immediately grabbed one of the nearby hulks and secretly signaled him.
Then he began some clumsy acting.
“What? He’s not there? Tsk. Another wild goose chase! Let’s call it a day and go!”
“Yes, boss!”
The tracksuit man turned as if to leave the factory.
But the hulks headed toward the warehouse door.
The factory fell silent.
Soon, the sound of a lock being undone came from inside the warehouse, and the door opened just a crack.
The tracksuit man pointed at the door and shouted,
“Grab him!”
“Eek!!”
The hulks shoved their hands into the gap in the door.
Startled, the president hurriedly tried to shut it, only to catch the hulks’ fingers.
“Aaagh!”
“You fucking bastard! Come out!”
“You son of a bitch!”
After a chaotic uproar, the president was finally dragged out, being pulled along by the hulks.
One of them threw the president down in front of the tracksuit man.
The president trembled like a herbivore facing a predator.
“Haha. ……President Choi. What’s wrong? Why so scared between us?”
The president forced an awkward smile.
The tracksuit man didn’t care and rolled up his sleeves.
“Between us? President Choi? You little shit. Just because I call you ‘President, President,’ you think I see you as a fucking joke?”
The man loosened up his body with cracking sounds and kicked the president in the jaw.
“Ghk!”
Blood dribbled out of the president’s mouth.
Thinking he wouldn’t be able to let it slide, the president quickly dropped to his knees and begged with both hands.
“President Choi. Please, just this once, have mercy.”
“Mercy my ass. Jesus. Anyone watching would think I’m bullying an innocent man.”
The tracksuit man pinched the president’s cheek with his index finger.
“You said you needed money, so I lent it to you. You said you’d pay it back in installments, so I cut you some slack. But who’s the one who hasn’t even paid back the interest, let alone the principal? So now, who’s the worse bastard?”
“Th, that is—”
“Fuck. I asked who’s the bastard!”
Smack!
The sound echoed through the factory.
The tracksuit man slapped the president across the face.
His lip split open, and fresh blood splattered onto the floor.
“You think I’m some charity worker? I hate bastards like you the most. You lived it up with my money all this time, didn’t you? Life felt thrilling, huh?”
Smack! Smaaack! Smack!
One side of the president’s face quickly turned red and swollen.
The tracksuit man’s entrance had been fairly comical.
But the fact that he was a loan shark hadn’t changed.
Once he revealed his true colors, the air inside the factory froze in an instant.
Everyone stopped what they were doing and watched the situation with faces full of fear.
Even Kkalkki, who usually disliked the president, darkened in expression.
He probably hadn’t expected them to treat the president like that.
The president staggered as if he might lose consciousness at any moment, but the tracksuit man didn’t stop slapping him.
“Stop it! This is too much!”
When Kkalkki couldn’t stand it anymore and rushed forward, the hulks grabbed him.
“You stay put, you little shit.”
“You want to end up the same way?”
Still not satisfied, the tracksuit man even took off the gold watch on his wrist.
“Wow. The more I think about it, the more pissed I get. You think I’m a pushover? Huh?”
The tracksuit man slipped the gold watch onto his fingers like a knuckle-duster.
“I told you clearly. If you hide again, I’ll tear apart your whole family and all your in-laws! Even that high-and-mighty gnat of yours, Madam Shin, I’ll rip her to shreds!”
In that state, he mercilessly struck the president’s front.
A shattered front tooth flew out of the president’s mouth.
“Kuh, kuhgh!”
I watched the scene calmly.
Those guys weren’t some big-shot loan sharks.
They were just a gang of thugs squeezing out pocket money with high interest.
Why he had gone to people like them.
I slowly looked around.
This place the president was running.
The Fourth Factory was by no means a shoddy small business.
It wasn’t huge, but it was a subcontractor of a subcontractor to a major corporation.
A place that steadily recorded sales as a third-tier band.
The problem lay with the president.
In my previous life, he embezzled factory funds whenever he had the chance and spent them on luxury, drinking, and carousing.
He got addicted to gambling and couldn’t escape it.
Eventually, he racked up massive debt and even turned to financial circles with severely downgraded credit.
At that time, the collateral he put up was the Fourth Factory itself.
This land, the machines and vehicles in the factory.
Everything else was put up as collateral to pull in money.
In the end, before long, the president lost the factory to that loan shark.
It was the miserable end of a foolish man.
However, sometimes someone’s tragedy became someone else’s comedy.
‘Finally.’
I lifted the corners of my lips and smiled.
It was unfortunate for the president, but for me, it was something I had waited and waited for.
‘The time has come.’
I took off my gloves and quietly approached that direction.
The president trembled violently, his face smashed into a bloody mess.
“Ch, President Choi! I’ll even sell my organs to pay it back, so please stop……,”
“Don’t pay it back! You fucking bastard! What’s selling a few organs even worth! Just die……!”
I grabbed the tracksuit man’s wrist as it shot up into the air.
Blood dripped steadily from the gold watch.
The bastard glared at me.
“And who the hell are you?”
The tracksuit man was breathing heavily, worked up with rage.
“Let go. I can’t see anything right now.”
He bulged his eyes threateningly as if they were about to pop out, but I didn’t budge an inch.
One thing I realized after gaining hero abilities.
Ordinary people were no longer my match.
No matter how much the tracksuit man and his underlings snarled, they only looked cute to me.
“How much is the debt?”
“What?”
“I’ll pay it back for you.”
The tracksuit man tilted his head, then burst out laughing.
“Pwahaha! Is the boss out of his mind, or are the employees all nuts too?!”
The hulks also jiggled their flesh as they snickered.
I wanted to wipe these guys out completely.
But—
‘This time, it can’t be solved that way.’
Purple Devil had eliminated the head of the Dio Guild through brute force as an apostle of justice.
But the Choi Yong-gi of reality had to uphold justice while abiding by law and order.
I met the tracksuit man’s gaze head-on and said,
“What, does it sound like a lie?”
I was actually a liar.
But when I spoke the truth, I was more serious than anyone else.
Seeing my expression, the tracksuit man gradually erased the lingering smile from his lips.
“Just like you said, I’ll stake my family and all my in-laws. I’ll pay it back, that money.”
I tightly gripped the tracksuit man’s wrist.
“Ugh!”
He hurriedly shook my hand off and stumbled backward.
“You little shit!”
“But there’s a condition.”
The tracksuit man, who had been about to rush at me, hesitated.
“I take this factory. A deal. Will you do it. Or not?”
He pondered for a moment, then wiped his bloodstained palm on his pants.
“You’re an interesting one. Fine. I don’t know how a guy working at a factory plans to pay it back, but I’ll believe you for the hell of it. But if you can’t pay, you’ll end up like this bastard too. Got it?”
Having stepped back one move, he spread his hand toward me.
“Let’s go inside and talk. Customer.”
I sat facing the tracksuit man on the sofa in the president’s office.
Behind him stood the hulks with grim expressions.
Behind me was just one person.
Kkalkki.
When I glanced back, Kkalkki was also struggling desperately not to be overwhelmed by the pressure.
I barely held back my laughter at his threatening posture and tightly scrunched face.
When the tracksuit man put a cigarette to his mouth, one of the hulks quickly flicked a lighter and lit it.
“So then. Your honorable name is……?”
“Choi Yong-gi.”
“Well now. That’s a very manly name.”
He took a drag of his cigarette and exhaled.
A pale haze of smoke spread through the cramped office.
“As you saw earlier, I have a bit of a fiery temper. If you pull pointless tricks, it won’t be fun. Customer.”
The tracksuit man flicked off ash with his finger and crossed his legs.
“What do you mean by taking the factory?”
“Exactly what it sounds like. I’ll pay off the debt borrowed against collateral, and I’ll take everything the president put up as collateral—the factory and the machines. All of it.”
“Oh? Is that so? Do you even know how much money needs to be paid back?”
“How much is it?”
The tracksuit man spread both hands.
“10 billion won!”
I didn’t even snort.
“Cut the bullshit. 4.2 billion. No more than that.”
Having worked at one factory for nearly 30 years, I knew this place’s annual sales and minor financial details inside out.
The price I suggested was exactly the reasonable line.
The tracksuit man chewed on the tip of his cigarette and stared straight at me.
“Hey. Customer. Do you even know how much money the president borrowed? Just the principal alone is over 5 billion won!”
A liar recognized another liar.
He was lying right now.
It seemed like this would drag on pointlessly, so I threw the first punch.
“Kkalkki.”
“Yes. Boss!”
At my instruction, Kkalkki lifted a large backpack.
Only Kkalkki and I knew what was inside the bag.
The zipper opened, and the contents spilled out onto the desk.
The tracksuit man swallowed hard.
Bundles of golden 50,000-won bills and stacks of dollar bills poured out.
All of it had been stolen from Cha Chi-do’s safe.
“W, where did you get this money? Did you steal it?”
“Does that matter? It’s 3 billion. I’ll pay the remaining 1.2 billion in installments.”
It was possible to repay the full 4.2 billion at once.
But I decided to set aside some slush funds in advance in case something unexpected happened.
The tracksuit man picked up one bundle of 50,000-won bills and examined it carefully.
“It’s not counterfeit? It’s real.”
He lifted his head and looked up at me.
“How are you going to pay the remaining 1.2 billion?”
“I’m an awakener. I’ll register with the Hunter Association soon. I’ll join a guild too.”
If you became a hunter affiliated with a major guild in South Korea, you gained various benefits.
One of them was a loan system.
“I’ll pay it back even if I have to borrow from a bank.”
A hunter was a kind of verified profession.
Since they worked risking their lives, they were given opportunities to handle large sums of money.
“This is the last chance. 4.2 billion. Will you do it. Or not?”
I reached out and placed my hand on top of the stacks of money.
“If you don’t like it, go to another factory. Kkalkki.”
“Yes-sir! Boss!”
Kkalkki picked up the bills and put them back into the bag.
The loan shark sprang up from his seat and stopped Kkalkki.
“Wait!”
He smiled obsequiously and bowed politely at the waist.
“I’ll prepare the contract immediately. CEO Choi.”