Chapter 52
Chapter 52: The Unqualified (3)
Whirrrr-!
The moment the mechanical sound of Masayoshi's Artificial Dantian activated, Chief Han released the limbs she'd wrapped around Masayoshi and quickly backed away.
Swoosh!
Masayoshi's fierce fist came flying, powered by his Artificial Dantian.
Heavenly Mountain Hammer!
A single blow like a massive mountain collapsing from the sky—the table shattered, and his fist punched clean through the wall.
Craaaack! BOOM!
The shockwave vibrated the entire room, and crash—the windows exploded outward.
As expected from Masayoshi!
Beep-! Beep!
Alarm sounds blared, and the hostess's screams threatened to split ears.
BOOM! CRASH!
At Masayoshi's assault, every piece of furniture in his penthouse began getting smashed to pieces.
Chief Han rolled her body out of the room and moved to the wide living room.
Craaack! Thud!
She unfolded the subtleties of her movement technique, evading and deflecting the attacks.
Choosing to dodge rather than block was a wise decision.
The power contained within the Heavenly Mountain Hammer would render any defense meaningless, even for a Poison Spider!
She was managing to dodge this way and that with remarkable skill, but was being steadily cornered.
For her, without an Artificial Dantian, even a glancing blow from Masayoshi's attacks would feel like her internal organs were being rattled by the shockwave.
"You damn bitch! How dare you try to steal my sword?!"
Masayoshi cracked his neck and approached her where she stood in the corner with both fists raised.
"Where's the sword? And who the hell are you?"
He glared at her.
Chief Han was already a rat trapped in a jar.
There was nowhere to escape.
Her bag containing her Artificial Dantian was far away, and there was nothing that could serve as a weapon.
The moment the alarm sounded, the elevator had descended and was now coming back up.
When the doors opened, Japanese Gukmubon climbers would pour out in full.
A life-or-death crisis.
Chief Han's Human Skin Mask, slightly loosened during her fight with Masayoshi, dangled precariously.
Masayoshi narrowed his eyes, then—
Let out a sharp exclamation and asked as if utterly dumbfounded.
"Chief Han?"
"……"
"No wonder something felt off, damn it. Now I get it. How dare you use the Blood-Sealing Death Oath on me? You crazy bitch!"
Riiip!
She tore off her dangling Human Skin Mask and shouted.
"Traitor to the nation!"
"Ha! Listen to you talk about treason."
"You've betrayed your country and your people!"
"In a capitalist society, what does that even mean? Everyone follows the money."
"Was money that good to you?"
"That's why I asked for a hundred billion deposited steadily. I also asked them to block the police and prosecutors."
"Jang Ae-guk!"
"Don't call me that."
Thud.
He stepped forward.
"I am Masayoshi."
"Gkk!"
When Chief Han bit her lip—
CRASH!
Masayoshi's fist shot toward her as if to crush her.
She dodged with her movement technique and shouted.
"Heavenly Mountain Hammer! You have no right to use the martial arts he taught you!"
"He? Is that old man still alive?!"
BOOM! Craaaack!
Chief Han's footwork contained the wonders of supreme mastery. But Masayoshi's chain strikes were fierce.
The energy coiling around his fists swirled, and Chief Han ultimately failed to dodge and was forced to block.
KABOOM!
The shockwave rattled her Dantian.
Masayoshi's next technique followed immediately!
Her numbed legs couldn't evade.
She was ultimately struck squarely in the abdomen.
"Kuugh!"
Coughing blood with a ragged breath—
Grab!
Masayoshi seized Chief Han by the throat and lifted her.
Chief Han struggled, and Masayoshi's grip slowly tightened around her neck.
"So you infiltrated wearing a Human Skin Mask to steal my sword, huh—clearly not an official Gukmubon operation."
"Gkk!"
"Then even if I kill you, Gukmubon can't say a word?"
His eyes rolled white with frenzy.
Crrrk!
The moment Masayoshi's powerful hand moved to snap her neck—
Whoosh-.
Something flew toward her from a corner.
It was Chief Han's Artificial Dantian.
I had thrown it to her.
"Wha—what is that?!"
As Masayoshi looked around searching for me—
Grrrk!
The fingers of the hand holding her began to slowly pry open.
"This—!"
When Masayoshi turned his gaze back to Chief Han, before his eyes—
Were the two eyes of the Poison Spider, glaring at Masayoshi as if to kill him.
Whirrrr-!
The moment Chief Han's Artificial Dantian blazed with light!
Crack!
She drove her knee straight into Masayoshi's solar plexus.
The moment Masayoshi clutched his stomach and staggered back several steps—
Ding! The elevator doors opened and Japanese Gukmubon climbers poured out.
"Masayoshi! Are you alright?!"
"Bwahahaha! You can't escape, you bitch!"
When the Japanese climbers rushed in armed with weapons and firearms, Masayoshi shouted as if he'd gained ten thousand troops.
"Capture that woman immediately!"
"Hai!"
The climbers moved toward the corner he pointed to, and—
Momentarily froze.
"What are you doing? Grab her quickly!"
"Masayoshi……?"
The climbers turned back to look at Masayoshi.
"What are you doing, you idiots!"
He roughly shoved the climbers aside and looked toward the corner—
"……"
There was no one there.
***
I moved the two unconscious women to my medicinal and poisonous herb field and laid them down.
"Managed to hide for now, but……"
What should I do with these women.
My head ached.
Having already secured Iron Instrument God's sword, I could have left them behind and slipped away in the confusion, but—
I didn't.
The alarm going off in Masayoshi's penthouse was entirely my fault.
Beyond that, it sat uneasily with me to just abandon two people who had made their own sacrifices.
Right now I'm not just any Poison Demon—I'm Happiness Ambassador Poison Demon.
Especially the attitude Chief Han had shown.
First, she risked danger to infiltrate Masayoshi's penthouse herself in place of another Gukmubon agent.
Also, when Masayoshi threw the hostess onto the marble floor, she instinctively caught the hostess so her head wouldn't smash and kill her.
That comes from a righteous heart.
If it hadn't been, she wouldn't have risked her cover being blown for someone else's sake.
"Funny though. Last time she was trying to kill me outright."
It was probably because classified Gukmubon information about Iron Instrument God's sword had leaked, and she'd mistakenly thought I was the culprit.
It seemed I'd need to significantly revise the preconception that she was a villain who killed people carelessly.
"Well, what's done is done."
Becoming a Poison Immortal from a Poison Demon isn't an easy thing either.
Swish swish-.
I covered both women's eyes first, then bound the two of them tightly.
My medicinal and poisonous herb field—
And the door leading to the Murim Tower are my foremost weapons and secrets.
A short while later, Chief Han came to.
"Mmhnn……. Mmph!"
She immediately thrashed. I had already removed her Artificial Dantian.
I approached her and said.
"Don't worry. You're in a safe place."
"……Mmph mmph!"
But she struggled even more fiercely.
No choice.
Thwack-!
I struck the back of her neck. Unconscious again.
This time the hostess woke up.
I was about to say something to her—
Right, I don't know Japanese well.
I held Gu Poison Mirage Fragrance under her nose and put her back to sleep.
"Mmph mmph!"
Chief Han woke up again immediately.
These two are taking turns causing a scene. Did I hit too softly?
I crouched down beside Chief Han.
"Chief Han."
"Mmph mmph!"
"Keep this up and I'll knock you out again."
"……"
She finally went quiet.
I wiggled my right hand.
A single drop of Gu Poison formed at my fingertip.
It was a moment of decision.
Should I feed her Gu Poison so she can't remember this moment or me.
Or should I resolve this through conversation.
Feeding her Gu Poison would be easy, but her infuriatingly stubborn personality was the problem.
She might try to forcibly recall me and her brain would melt.
Something I'd gone through countless times in my previous life in the martial world when I fed Gu Poison to willful warriors.
Whether it was right to eliminate her—the representative of the Republic of Korea's climbers—I was genuinely deliberating.
"I'll ask you first. I'm going to remove your gag—if you say anything foolish, there will be no mercy from that point on. Understood?"
"Mmph mmph."
I removed the gag.
She wet her parched lips with her tongue.
I asked the question I wanted answered.
"Chief Han, you knew I was in the penthouse, didn't you?"
"……I did."
"Since when?"
"Since the elevator."
As I thought.
When the elevator registered 280 kg.
She had deliberately distracted Masayoshi so he couldn't see.
Slide-.
I withdrew the Gu Poison I'd formed at my fingertip.
"Why did you do that?"
"Because my plan could have fallen apart."
"And?"
"If someone had slipped in, that would be an enemy of Jang Ae-guk. Against a common enemy, they're an ally."
"Ha. Without knowing who I am."
"We've met before."
"……"
She looked at me with her blindfolded face.
"You……are that person. The Black Market swindler."
"You figured it out impressively."
"You have a peculiar unsettling aura."
"What kind of aura?"
"The kind that makes people feel unpleasant."
I ended up letting out a chuckle.
She added.
"You have a distinctive scent too."
"What scent?"
Chief Han twitched her nose slightly before answering.
"A sweet fragrance."
"Ding ding ding."
I unwrapped a chocolate and placed it in the mouth of the person who'd gotten the right answer.
"Gkk! What is that."
"Chocolate."
She tried to spit it out.
"Now, now—there's no food here. We don't know how many days we'll have to hide, if you don't eat even that you'll keel over from weakness."
"I can't eat something given by someone I don't know."
"Didn't you say you know me. I heard ally."
"……"
"Please eat. If I wanted you dead, you'd already be dead."
She hesitated briefly, then quietly let the chocolate melt in her mouth.
Chief Han's expression softened ever so subtly.
How is it?
It's chocolate Min-jeong sent from Paris.
"……It's good."
"Of course."
"But this chocolate's shape…… is a heart?"
"It's my feelings."
"Give me a break. Flirting when you're past fifty. You'll probably ask if I want to grab coffee next!"
Fifty?
Ah—she means how I looked when I was in disguise.
And so I stayed in the herb field with the two of them.
I can open a pocket dimension leading to my herb field from anywhere and hide myself, but there's a drawback.
I come back out from where I went in.
Three days until returning home.
I worried about my mother and Bo-reum who would be searching for me when I suddenly disappeared.
Just in case, when leaving the hotel I'd made a request at the front desk.
If those two came looking for me, to tell them I'd gone to meet a Japanese buyer on company business.
Up to two days would be fine.
I fed the hostess Mirage Fragrance, had her drink some chocolate and spring water, and put her back to sleep—but
Chief Han was still making a fuss.
"You! So why exactly did you infiltrate Jang Ae-guk's home?!"
"You went to steal the sword, didn't you?! That's a treasure of the Republic of Korea! It's not something the likes of you should be selling on the Black Market."
"Where is this? I can feel soil. There's a smell of plants too."
"Hey! Mister Swindler. Just tell me where we are!"
"How did you escape……? Did you have this kind of ability…?"
"How about working for the Republic of Korea?"
She suddenly switched to formal speech as well, mixing in persuasion, rambling on and on about various things—but I didn't respond.
She was perceptive and sharp.
The less information given, the better.
In between I also checked on Jang Masayoshi's penthouse.
They were busily searching for traces of all three of us, but naturally couldn't find any.
Masayoshi was making a frantic uproar demanding they find Iron Instrument God's sword.
"What is everyone doing! With this many people you still can't find it?!"
But it could not be found anywhere.
At which point the Japanese Murim Tower headquarters grew suspicious of Jang Masayoshi himself.
The 37th floor he needed to climb.
A place where you must stake your life.
A place that's already fraught with danger—and now, of all times, Iron Instrument God's sword has also disappeared……
Hadn't a perfect excuse been created for Masayoshi to avoid the climb?
After a long period of rummaging—
The person who appeared to be the leader among the Japanese Murim Tower headquarters agents looked at Masayoshi.
He dropped into a chair, lit a cigarette, and crossed his legs.
"Tsk. But doesn't this seem a little, odd to you, don't you think?"
It was an expression that made his meaning plain for anyone to read.
Masayoshi bulged his eyes and stared at him.
"You, what's with that look? Are you suspecting me right now?"
"Think about it one by one. Wouldn't it be suspicious? And it's not as though you have no track record."
"Hey, you bastard! Are you out of your mind? Why would I smuggle Iron Instrument God's sword from here? Smuggle it to trade for what, candy? Huh?"
"When did I ever say you smuggled it?"
Masayoshi was momentarily flustered.
"No, that's—"
"I'm saying, given the circumstances, wouldn't it be worth suspecting. You brought in a Ginza hostess—and of all things, the CCTV happened not to be working?"
"That's because you lot kept going on about the Japanese prosecutors last time, so I was trying to eliminate the evidence—"
"Destroying evidence? Did you just say destroying evidence?"
"That's not what I meant! The Korean woman, Chief Han! That woman was here!"
At that, the agent shouted in irritation.
"Masayoshi. Get a grip! Why would Chief Han be here?!"
"That woman disguised herself as a hostess and approached me!"
"Poison Spider Chief Han as a hostess—does that even make sense?"
The hands that had been trembling from Masayoshi's rage reached for the Gukmubon agent's collar.
The agent firmly grabbed his hand.
"280 kg. The weight registered in the elevator. At minimum four or more people came up here! Nothing you're saying matches up."
"Th-that's—?!"
"While you're being shown respect, do things worthy of respect. Come clean. Jang Masayoshi!"
Slap!
The agent shook off his hand, grinding his teeth together as he asked.
"……Where did you hide it?"
"Krgh!"
Considerable tension flowed between the two.
Wearing my Dark Moon Mask, I struggled to hold back laughter from my corner.
Reaping what you sow.
Wasn't this a moment where those words fit perfectly.
"Enough—come with us somewhere."
"What? What do you think you're doing?!"
"Follow along. While I'm being civil. You drunken bastard."
"Hey! You—"
He was ultimately dragged away by the Japanese Gukmubon.
Serves you right.
I returned to the herb field and knocked the two women unconscious again.
I slung one over each shoulder and emerged back into his penthouse.
"No one around."
The penthouse that guards Jang Masayoshi.
With him gone, even the security personnel were nearly all absent.
"No CCTV either."
Click-.
"Elevator's working too."
Taking advantage of the dark of night I descended to the basement level and exited the building.
I loaded the two of them into a pre-rented car and headed toward the outskirts of Tokyo.
A quiet place with no one around.
Outskirts without a single common CCTV camera.
I parked the car some distance away, carried them both and went into the forest.
I woke Chief Han, who still had a blindfold over her eyes.
"Wake up."
"Mmnn-."
"We're on the outskirts of Tokyo. Can you manage? There are lights in the distance—go there and ask to use a phone. There are yen in your pocket."
"……"
"Take care of the hostess too. If she stays in Japan like this, Masayoshi will have her killed."
"Understood."
"Take the blindfold off yourself in a little while."
I set Chief Han down first, then laid the still-sleeping hostess on the ground.
"Then I'll be going."
As I turned to leave—
"W-wait!"
She called out to me, groping through the air.
"What is it?"
"What's your identity?"
"Black Market swindler."
"Not that! Who are you, really?!"
An urgent voice. Earnest longing soaked through every word.
I donned my Dark Moon Mask and left a single line drifting away.
"A Nameless hero."
"Ah……!"
"Don't chase after me any further. If you don't want to see a second Masayoshi."
"H-hey!"
Slide-.
I concealed my body and moved away from her.
From behind a tree, I watched Chief Han.
With her blindfold removed, she checked on the hostess first, then saw what lay beside her and covered her mouth in shock.
"Iron Instrument God's Sword!"
She grasped the sword, quietly looked at something wound around the hilt for a while, then held it in her hand.
Her mother's keepsake.
A necklace.
[Chief Han is at a loss for words and filled with admiration. +1,000 Happiness]
[Chief Han is ashamed of herself for having misunderstood, now that she has met a true patriot. +1,000 Happiness]
Chief Han.
Whether she has the right to wield Iron Instrument God's Sword, I don't know.
Since she uses a spear, she probably won't use it.
But this one thing was clear.
More than me, blinded by revenge—she, who lives for a greater cause, is more deserving.
[Kim Tae-yang says Iron Instrument God would think so too. +1 Happiness]
……Even so, you're supposed to say it shouldn't be me, you idiot.
Sniff sniff.
But why is that woman smelling the sword and necklace?
Wait— what's with the enraptured expression?
[Chief Han vows that next time she meets you, she will absolutely ask you to have coffee together. +500 Happiness]
……What?
Coffee?