Chapter 91 : Chapter 91
Chapter 91: Illegal Awakening (3)
The passage descending through the Doghouse entrance was deeper than expected.
Dust stuck to the tip of the tongue, and damp moisture scratched the inside of the lungs.
As they went further down, the air became heavy, and the sound of footsteps died out dully as if eaten by a sponge.
At the end of the stairs, a narrow hallway.
Old fluorescent lights flashed intermittently.
Every time the lights came alive, wall posters popped out and then disappeared.
‘New Booster Stock.’
‘Guaranteed Awakening Package.’
‘Goblin Installment Plan.’
Such phrases caught the eye.
Once out of the narrow passage, numerous alley entrances came into view.
Countless shops embroidered like a maze.
And depending on which path one chose, the appearance of the shops varied vastly.
Yoo jin, having scanned the entrances once, decided on a spot and moved his feet.
Partly because he thought they would all be connected regardless of where he went, and since he came to find a student anyway.
He intended to scan every shop here until he found him.
It seemed it didn't matter where they entered.
Yoo jin, the children, and Kei entered the entrance selected like that.
Numerous shops came into view starting from the entrance.
In the shop display case on the right, a dried monster liver was placed on a scale, and at the counter next to it, illegal drugs like ‘Mana Promotion Stimulant’ filled the stalls in bottles.
The sound of scratching metal, suppressed groans, and the beat of bouncing calculation boards overlapped quietly.
So.
They had really come.
To the Underground Dark Store that was only handed down as an urban legend.
Well, among the places spread all over the world.
It was likely a small branch in Goyang City.
Thud.
Thud.
Yoo jin and the children advanced while receiving the merchants' gazes.
In the midst of that, Kei spoke in a low voice.
“I’m asking this too late, but why did you come here?”
“To find a disciple.”
“A disciple?”
“Yeah.”
“Why would a disciple be at the Dark Store…….”
Yoo jin cast a glance to the side.
“Do you know the place where the guys who do Illegal Awakening are?”
“I don't know the exact location…… but Illegal Awakening, I haven't heard that in a long time. Rumors are rife that those guys are truly malicious. The ones worse than junkies are the guys who do Illegal Awakening.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. They lure people who want to become Awakened and forcibly inject drugs, or use some strange stone? They force an awakening with that. But the problem is…….”
Kei approached Yoo jin one step closer and whispered.
“This is more malicious than drugs; they say you have to periodically take stabilizers to maintain your sanity. I know that if you stop that, you go into a frenzy and die of shock. So they say they really stick a straw in and rake in the money or something.”
“They're thugs.”
“Not just thugs, they practically only lack knives; they are almost gangsters. Gangsters.”
“Then do they also have medicine to turn them back?”
Kei shrugged his shoulders.
“That, I don't know either.”
“You acted like you knew everything while chattering away, so why don't you know the most important thing?”
“No, is it a crime to say I don't know what I don't know……?”
Kei looked at him timidly.
“…….”
He was right.
Yoo jin sighed through the tip of his nose.
“Anyway, do you know where the shop that does Illegal Awakening is? You said you've been here before.”
“I've only been here once…… and I don't really know that location…….”
“You're really no help.”
“No, just letting you know the entrance was enough, wasn't it? I even set aside work to help you.”
Kei grumbled quietly.
“Geez. You don't know how to be grateful at all…….”
“What did you say?”
Boom!
As Yoo jin flicked his finger, the sound of bursting air rang out.
“Eek! It's nothing…… Haha… If we search through everything, we'll find it, right….”
Kei, smiling awkwardly, sighed and lowered his head.
Yoo jin looked back at the children.
“Hey, brats. Since this is a dangerous place. Don't act rashly and stay well behind m…….”
Yoo jin's words cut off there.
Then his dark brown eyes moved slowly.
Jin-ho.
Tae-wook.
Ye-na.
Seong…….
“……Where did Seong-hyeon go?”
At Yoo jin's voice, the children looked around simultaneously.
“Where did he go?”
“He was here just a moment ago?”
“Um… Uh…… Over there…….”
Ye-na carefully lifted a finger to point.
The gazes of Yoo jin and the children gathered at that end.
In front of a flashy show window.
Seong-hyeon was talking to a woman standing leaning against a shop.
“Sister, do you have time?”
“It's a brat I haven't seen before?”
“A brat. Even if I look like this, I'm a man who knows everything there is to know.”
“Hahaha. Cute. But what business does a student have coming this far? This isn't a place just anyone can enter.”
“If it's a place where such a beautiful person is, I could enter even if a thousand locks were blocking it.”
“Oh my, look at him. Hahaha.”
The eyes of Yoo jin and the children became flat lines.
“…….”
“…….”
“…….”
Tsk.
“Low class.”
“Truly amazing…….”
“It's not amazing, it's stupid.”
Jin-ho and Ye-na half-closed their eyes.
Tae-wook shook his head as if he was dumbfounded.
“Wow, he's not an ordinary guy either. Is it because he's Teacher's student?”
“What?”
“N… Nothing…….”
Kei coughed in vain and shrank his shoulders at Yoo jin's gaze.
Yoo jin slowly moved his steps toward Seong-hyeon.
Chuck―
The beautiful woman's smile stiffened.
And Seong-hyeon's eyes shook with a rattle.
“Tea… Teacher…….”
“Teacher?”
The woman tilted her head.
“Hmm…… You don't look like one? This isn't a place worth coming to for a picnic.”
The woman's eyes narrowed.
Sharpness like a cat.
A fleeting moment.
The woman quickly pulled out the hand she had inside her pocket.
“Stop there.”
Yoo jin's single word.
At that one word, the woman's face turned pale blue.
Her breath cut off as if broken.
Seong-hyeon, who was standing blankly, only blinked his eyes, not knowing what was happening.
“I saved you. If you moved a little more, you would have really died.”
Behind Yoo jin's voice, Seong-hyeon's body, which had been rolling its eyes, jumped.
“Oh, you scared me. What, when did you get here….”
Seong-hyeon was only able to discover it then.
That a sharp needle had come right next to his neck.
And the one holding it was the woman who had been talking with Seong-hyeon just a moment ago.
“Thank you for saving me, Teach…….”
“Not you.”
“Yes?”
Yoo jin's sharp gaze embedded into the woman.
“You. I saved you.”
The woman flopped down on that spot.
Energy drained from her limbs.
It was true.
He had saved her.
Not that child, but her.
If the poison needle had pierced the child's neck just now.
Gulp.
Her own neck would not have remained attached like this.
“…….”
Hiding in that silence.
While the woman was sitting collapsed and gasping for breath.
Thud thud!
Noisy footsteps flocked from inside the shop.
“Sister!”
“What did you guys do to our Sister!”
“You son of a bitch. Daring to touch a salesclerk of the Dark Store? Don't think you'll leave alive.”
Three sturdy young men.
Muscles tangled like knots on their forearms.
Scars passed thickly across their faces.
In their hands were a metal baton, a stun gun, and a long sword.
Along with sturdy physiques, scary faces that would make most gangsters go away.
Considering this was the Underground Dark Store, just making them this angry would mean never seeing sunlight again.
However.
“A… Ah…….”
The woman opened her mouth slightly, but it didn't reach them.
“Grab the brats too. Since kids' kidneys are fresh.”
The three monsters approached raising their weapons high.
Every time their feet moved.
The woman's expression crumbled down.
“N… No…….”
***
1 minute later.
“…….”
“…….”
The gangsters who had been spiritedly trying to tear out kidneys were kneeling.
Cheeks dyed purple.
Cracked batons.
Posture with two arms stretched above their heads.
“Don't drop your hands, raise them higher.”
Yoo jin's stern voice rang the floor.
Chuck!
Forearms were raised even more to touch their ears.
Next to the gangsters who had black eyes, the woman who was the salesperson was also kneeling together.
Perhaps the fear had gone a little now, her breathing stabilized and the trembling of her body gradually subsided.
“Jerks, you act up without knowing who this person is! He's a Returnee, a Returnee! The one called the Demon King!”
Kei shouted while sauntering around like a an excited fox piggybacking on a tiger.
“You guys who do the log business daring to! I'll let you off this much today, so go take out all the money in the safe…… Uack!”
Kei, who was acting tough, rolled on the floor at Yoo jin's single kick.
“Why are you making a fuss. And what safe, safe. I told you to earn money by sweating.”
“Haha…… Teacher. Since it's money earned by doing bad deeds anyway, if I take a little and use it kindly, it's good for the sister and good for the brother-in-law and picking up ground…….”
“Stop talking bullshit, and shut your mouth. If you open your mouth one more time, I'll make it so you can never speak again.”
Hap!
Kei closed his mouth so tight his lips couldn't be seen.
“Whew… Then…….”
Yoo jin moved in front of the kneeling gangsters and lowered his posture.
“Hey, are you guys really log merchants?”
The three people's eyes shook.
“Oh my, no answer. Should I really make it so you can't speak for a lifetime? Whether that's because you have no tongue or because your head bursts, I don't know.”
At those words where one couldn't distinguish if it was sincere or a joke.
They opened their mouths without knowing who was first.
“N, no. Actually, we did that to look scary.”
“We are doing work completely unrelated to organ trafficking.”
“It is absolutely not a log business.”
The gangsters are looking at Yoo jin with deer-like eyes now, unlike their appearance.
“Really? Then, what do you guys do, you guys.”
When Yoo jin narrowed his eyes, the three poured out the truth as if fumbling.
“Actually, we are a place that launders money.”
“Sister is the face madam.”
“Because it's dangerous if Sister does it alone, we are sticking around.”
Yoo jin stroked his chin.
“Money laundering…….”
It didn't look like a lie.
Kei, who stood up staggering, raised his hand high.
“Look at this! Since it's bad money anyway, I will use it as clean money in a clean pla… Uack!”
Kei rolled on the floor again at Yoo jin's kick.
“This bastard talks nonsense whenever there's a gap. Tsk. But…….”
Yoo jin's gaze headed toward the gangsters.
Grin.
A devil-like smile was built on Yoo jin's face looking at the gangsters.
“You won't be entirely useless.”
The three people's Adam's apples bobbed simultaneously.
***
Leaving the small commotion behind, the party walked further inside.
The passage became increasingly narrow, and water droplets fell with a hiss from the ceiling pipes.
“Why did you save them?”
Kang Tae-wook, walking side by side, asked Yoo jin.
“Because I think there's a time to use those guys.”
“A time to use them?”
Road.
Safe.
And contact network.
“You have to open this neighborhood's door with this neighborhood's key.”
Yoo jin laughed lightly and walked quickly to get ahead.
Kang Tae-wook and the children looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders.
Like that, one block, two blocks.
Like that, Yoo jin, the children, and finally Kei continued to enter slowly into the inside of the Dark Store.
The moment they passed the ‘Mana Booster Shop’ and the ‘Pub.’
“…….”
Yoo jin's steps suddenly lost strength.
Yoo jin stiffened blankly.
The children and Kei who were following him from behind looked at his back with suspicious expressions and approached Yoo jin.
“Teach, what's wrong?”
“Is there something there?”
His head turned to the right, not the direction they were going.
Yoo jin, stiffened like a statue, did not give any answer.
The children and Kei who arrived behind Yoo jin's back before they knew it.
“What is it, what.”
“Is there a pretty woman or something?”
“Is it a delicious restaurant…….”
“…….”
The expressions of the children who were spitting out words lightly sank in an instant.
And then they stiffened in the exact same manner as Yoo jin.
They couldn't help it.
Because they saw it clearly.
A dead end.
A pile of trash.
Torn boxes, wet paper, abandoned syringes.
Lying collapsed amidst that.
The figure of Lee Chan-yeong.
“Oh my…….”
Chan-yeong lying prone on the floor, his skin stiffened pale.
A forbidden medicine bottle was held in his hand.