Chapter 138
Chapter 138: December 31, January 1 (1)
[Past Life—Gangho]
Every house had red cloth hung from it, and the streets were awash in crimson.
When the year turned, Gangho would hang red cloth like this and prepare drums and gongs.
It was all in preparation for the festival welcoming the new year.
I too, from early that morning, had dressed not in the green robe I always wore—
But in red, and gone to greet my parents.
"Our Seon is just one day away from turning eight."
"Yes."
"That red robe suits you wonderfully. You look so grown-up."
"My, darling. Our Seon looks good in anything he wears."
"Huhuhuh. That he does."
Mother was busy changing my little sister Seon-a into her red clothes.
I walked over to Seon-a and took her tiny hand in mine.
"Cootchy-coo. Did our little Seon-a sleep well?"
Seon-a beamed at me with a bright smile.
She was my little sister, but she was so adorable it was unbearable.
When I broke into a wide grin, Father spoke up.
"You're that happy?"
"Of course. She's pretty and cute."
"And?"
"Like a fairy."
Father ruffled my hair, and Mother smiled with warm contentment.
"Our Seon has grown up quite a bit, so you must train your martial arts harder."
"Ah, but I like books more than martial arts."
"Ahem. You need to train diligently to become the Young Master."
I stuck out my lower lip and protested.
"Looking at the branch-family cousins, they didn't seem like much. I figure I'll beat them all easily enough later without really trying."
"You!"
Father's expression hardened.
I realized I had said the wrong thing and flinched.
The one to scold me harshly was Mother.
"Dang Seon—you must never speak of the family members with such contempt!"
"……I'm sorry."
"And the Sacheondang Family is not the whole world! Every outstanding talent under heaven is your rival. In this Gangho, there is nothing more dangerous than arrogance!"
I bowed my head.
"I was wrong."
Mother's scolding continued, and in the end, Seon-a burst into tears.
"Waaaah."
In the end, Father took my hand and led me outside.
"I'll scold him out here."
"Please teach him a proper lesson so he never becomes conceited again!"
"Don't worry. Follow me!"
I trudged after Father with a deflated look, and without a word, he brought me to the manor.
"Dang Seon!"
"……Yes."
"Can't see your mother, right?"
Father glanced around, then pulled a candy from his robe.
"Here."
"Hiiing."
The tension broke and a single tear rolled down my cheek.
"Your mother's a little scary, isn't she?"
"Hiing. I was wrong."
I wiped my tears with the candy already in my mouth.
"You're nearly eight now—can't be showing tears. Stop!"
"Stopping!"
Clatter—.
The candy rolling around inside my mouth was incredibly sweet.
"Phew. Even I get a sinking feeling every time your mother gets angry."
"You do too, Father?"
"Of course."
"Hihit."
"Laugh after crying and you'll get a—"
"Aaack! No!"
Father tousled my hair roughly.
"Seon."
"Yes."
"Everything your mother says is because she wants the best for you."
"I know."
"When you see your mother later, you know what to do?"
"Yes."
"Give it a try."
Ahem.
I cleared my throat and began my performance.
"Mother! Father scolded me terribly. He slapped my hands twenty times, and spanked me until my bottom was on fire. And that wasn't all—he hung me upside down from a tree and kept dipping me in and out of a water jar filled to the brim, and I could barely breathe—"
"S-Stop!"
Father's face turned beet red as he clapped his hand over my mouth.
"Leave out the part at the end."
"From the jar?"
"No, from the slapping."
"Isn't that a little weak then?"
"Let's just go up to the spanking."
Father and I looked at each other and burst out laughing.
"Seon. Do you know the meaning of the red clothes you're wearing right now?"
"No."
Father explained.
"When the new year comes, a monster called the 'Year Beast' descends from the mountains and devours people."
"R-Really?"
"That's right. It has long fangs and horns on its head—a terrifying creature with a face like an ox."
Father mimicked the fanged monster using two index fingers.
"But this Year Beast has a weakness."
"What is it?"
I asked Father with wide, sparkling eyes.
"The Year Beast hates fire and loud noises."
"Aha! So that's why we wear red clothes and prepare drums and gongs."
"Exactly."
Father gave me a light round of applause for getting it right.
"Well then, are you scared?"
"No. Not at all."
"Your eyes look a little rattled though?"
"……Just a tiny bit, honestly."
"Still, there's nothing to worry about."
Father looked at me and straightened out my clothes.
"Because Father will always protect you."
* * *
[Streets of Seoul]
"And so another year ends today."
I walked aimlessly into the cold wind.
I couldn't stop thinking about what I had seen a few days ago.
‘My poison herb field, the collision, the Murim Tower message, the graduation album and the black shadow.’
The strange things were piling up.
‘The Murim Tower……is plotting something.’
I felt a sense of betrayal.
The Murim Tower.
I had believed this thing had chosen only me.
‘Kim Tae-yang. How dare you betray me?’
[Kim Tae-yang waves his hands in denial, saying, ‘Me? I'm not the Murim Tower’. +1 Happiness]
‘How can you not know? Go find out right now!’
[Kim Tae-yang lets out a sigh, asking, ‘And how exactly am I supposed to do that?’ +1 Happiness]
Sheesh.
"And what in the world is Hwangbo Geom up to?"
I had debated going to confront him and feeding him Gu Poison at least dozens of times.
What held me back was a thread of suspicion.
‘Keep friends close, and enemies closer.’
That was wisdom I had gained from Gangho in my past life.
If I charged in blindly and brought everything crashing down, I wouldn't find the truth.
There was no telling how much Hwangbo Geom already knew.
If the Murim Tower was orchestrating something through Hwangbo Geom—
For now, I had to watch as closely as possible without letting him suspect anything.
‘I've already stirred the pot once, so some kind of reaction will come.’
I was angry about the Murim Tower scheming behind my back—
But honestly, my heart was beating with excitement.
The thought that I might actually be able to land a blow on the Tower……
It was anticipation.
"A year really goes by fast."
I had been reincarnated at the tail end of last year, and already a full year had slipped by.
So many things had happened. So many people I had met.
"Right. Time to wrap up the year."
I called Lee Won-ryong.
"Get to the safe house."
* * *
Both Lee Won-ryong and Jo Je-bin were undeniably capable.
Talented, and sharp-witted.
The difference between the two—
Lee Won-ryong was a bit smarter, and Jo Je-bin was a bit more ruthless.
Especially Jo Je-bin—I sometimes wondered if there was something broken in his head.
I felt it clearly when he dealt with the elders Hwang Mu-yeol, Sin Jung-dan, and An Kang-han who had once turned against me.
After they were dealt with, Jo Je-bin handled the cleanup.
A normal person, no matter how used to this kind of work, would lose sleep for days after seeing that kind of carnage.
But this one didn't flinch at all.
On top of that, he even made off with the valuables in the middle of it all.
‘None of them are right in the head.’
I was muttering to myself at the safe house when they arrived.
"My lord!"
Lee Won-ryong, in his bowler hat, came rushing in and grabbed my right hand. Not to be outdone, Jo Je-bin seized my left.
"What are you two doing. Disgusting."
"My lord! My loorrd!"
Two middle-aged men clinging to both my hands—it felt awful.
"Let go, you two!"
I shook them off.
Lee Won-ryong spoke.
"Where on earth have you been all this time!"
"You know where."
"W-Well, that's true, but……"
"Hey, you two."
"Yes."
"While I was gone, you had it easy, didn't you?"
"……Pardon?"
Time to bring out the whip first.
"When I went on my trip to France, everyone else came all the way to Paris to find me. The ones who couldn't come personally sent someone in their place."
"What?"
Both of them looked up with startled eyes.
"Everyone flew out to check on me—whether I was comfortable, whether I needed anything—but the two of you didn't budge an inch."
The two exchanged glances, then immediately launched into excuses.
"A-Ah, well. You told us to just hold our ground and—"
"Read the room!"
Both middle-aged men flinched.
"You! If your wife says, 'Honey, go out with your friends tonight and have a drink', is she being sincere?"
"No."
"You're not supposed to go."
"Exactly! You dim-witted fools! And I'm supposed to call these two my subordinates. Ugh, my blood pressure."
The two of them drooped their heads with sheepish expressions.
"Now report—tell me everything that happened!"
Lee Won-ryong went first.
"The pressure from the government and the Gukmubon side had been fierce, but lately it's quieted down some."
"Did the prosecutors move?"
"Yes. About twenty people were arrested in total. Lower-level ones, but still."
"On what charges?"
"Things they'd done before. Assault, bodily harm, threats—that sort of thing."
"Nasty lot, aren't they."
Lee Won-ryong hesitated briefly, then nodded.
"……They are."
"Should've gone to prison. You do wrong, you pay for it."
I quickly read through the verdicts Lee Won-ryong handed me for the arrested disciples.
Twenty verdicts in total.
Six were decent enough, and the other fourteen were trash.
"Have all the victims been compensated?"
"I handled it out of my own pocket."
"Good work. I'll reimburse you separately."
I sorted through the twenty verdicts and handed back only six.
"Fill their commissary accounts generously, and take them back when they're released. The rest—cut them all loose."
"Yes. I'll see to it."
They were wicked people.
No matter that they belonged to the Red Dragon Gate—they weren't worth saving.
If anything, I almost felt grateful to the government for weeding out the deadwood.
Next came Jo Je-bin's report.
"Japanese yakuza have entered Korea."
"What?"
I frowned.
Given that the Red Dragon Gate's backbone was made up of gang members, I had known a confrontation with the Mafia or yakuza would come eventually—
But the timing was still too early.
"They're called the Senzo-gumi. Known even among yakuza as brutal and utterly without scruples."
Japan's climbers included former military and Self-Defense Force veterans—
But a large portion of them were former yakuza.
After Japan's anti-gang ordinances were enforced, measures had been taken to cut ties between yakuza and ordinary citizens and businesses, effectively purging them from society.
Since then, they had been walking a road of decline—
But after the Murim Tower emerged, they concluded that climbing was their only path forward and threw themselves into it aggressively.
The Japanese government, mindful of appearances, didn't give them full-blown support.
Unlike the former Triads out of China, who had the government actively pushing them from behind.
But recently—
Jang Ae-guk had returned to Korea, and Japan began throwing its full support behind its climbers.
Word going around claimed that among Japan's current top climbers, the so-called ‘Musashi Brothers’ were also former yakuza.
"How did they get into Korea?"
"The Super Tower Climber K competition."
The borders that had loosened so carelessly at the time.
Not just the yakuza—criminal organizations from all over the world had seized the opportunity to move into Korea.
I had built the Golden Tower, and money from across the globe had started flooding into the country.
"Most of them are former climbers."
"Hm."
‘So they've all got some skill, then.’
There were a fair number of climber veterans in the police as well, but dealing with thugs who charged in with Artificial Energy Centers was no easy task.
Just the other day, the news had reported a dramatic rise in violent crime.
"Park Jae-yeol, Pyeon Jae-yeong. You useless fools."
"Pardon?"
"Nothing."
I exhaled at their incompetence.
With the Republic of Korea in this state, the President and the Minister of Justice—
Had flown off to France to secure their own survival.
"What's the current situation?"
"The yakuza have been expanding their territory in the Black Market while the Red Dragon Gate has been lying low."
Lee Won-ryong added,
"They're sweeping up Korea's dirty money. Firearms have flooded in as well."
"Good lord."
"Drugs are circulating too. Looks like they came in with a clear objective."
"How much of the Black Market have they taken?"
"About thirty percent, but—"
"Damn it!"
"It's still spreading. They've been throwing enormous funds at it……"
Lee Won-ryong's voice trailed off, as if he couldn't face me.
"We had no idea the Senzo-gumi would have this kind of financial firepower."
"No."
"Pardon?"
I had a gut feeling Lee Won-ryong's read was wrong.
"The Senzo-gumi is just a front. An attempt to swallow the Black Market whole—that would mean all of Japan's yakuza acting together, or Japan itself is on the move."
"That would be the correct read."
Jo Je-bin agreed with me.
"Whatever else—guns and drugs circulating means more casualties."
A deteriorating public order would also severely hamper my mission of accumulating Happiness Points.
Jo Je-bin replied.
"The drugs may slow down a bit. One of their drug labs went up in flames."
"Well done. You two handled it?"
I had been ready to hand out praise, thinking it was their work.
"No."
Hm?
"It was vigilantes."
Jo Je-bin handed over a photograph.
It was taken by a Black Market CCTV camera.
A man of solid build.
And a woman—slender but taut and sharp-looking.
Both wore masks, dressed in black.
Bulletproof vests loaded with various equipment.
"We're trying to identify them, but it hasn't been easy."
"They're almost impossibly elusive."
Lee Won-ryong and Jo Je-bin tilted their heads in puzzlement.
But I—Knew exactly who they were the moment I laid eyes on the photo.
[Why are you in such a hurry to leave?]
[I have a lot to do.]
It was Minister Han Seung-pyo and Chief Han.